WWJD?

In my early adulthood, I read books on Saint Francis of Assissi (1181/1182 -1226). I was especially impressed by his living his life in imitation of Christ (imitatio Christi) and that set me on a  certain path. Later, in the 1980's, I encountered the book, In His Steps by Charles Sheldon, that portrayed late nineteenth century imitatio Christi in light of the Social Gospel. In the late 1990's and early 2000's, I read books by Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan on the Historical Jesus that further widened my path.

The subtitle of In His Steps is What Would Jesus Do? In the 1990's this phrase became popular with Christian youth and they used the letters WWJD.

In the lead up to the Iraq War, this question, "What would Jesus do?", kept coming to my mind. I knew the answer in that regard and I became quite distressed when my local church and local churches in general would not stand up for Jesus as the old song said. The heads of the major denominations, though,  including my own, had come out in opposition to the war. I took to the street in protest.

Recently, I was interested in the remarks of President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on February 2. I was impressed at how he spoke of the role that faith, his Christian faith, plays in his job as President. He spoke of not leaving our values at the door. He spoke of the importance of the Golden Rule, treating others as we wish to be treated. He spoke of the financial difficulties of many Americans today. He spoke of treating people fairly and providing opportunities for all. He even mentioned the most vulnerable among us. He did have some good words.

There is a question, though, that I would like to ask our President. I have posted previously on our use of drones in warfare. The President has spoken of how few civilian casualties have come from our drone attacks.  However, in August of 2011, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism produced a study that said at least 385 civilians had been killed by our drones in Pakistan in the last seven years and that at least 168 of these were children. Now my question is: Who Would Jesus Drone?

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As a postcript, I would like to link to a  very recent blog post-sermon by the Rev. Chuck Queen that speaks to WWJD. I believe it is quite worth reading.

Grounding Drones

Visit CODEPINK.org to see CP's latest news on their actions against drones, to take action, to get involved, and to get the facts. Go here.

Terror by Drones

On December 28, the Lexington Herald-Leader published an article from The Washington Post on President Obama’s expansion of the U.S. drone war--targeted killings and surveillance of adversaries by unmanned aircraft systems.

The only adviser to President Obama who questioned the expansion of the drone war was Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, who was later fired. Pres. Obama himself seems to have been noncommittal.

The advantage of targeted drone killings is that not as many U.S. personnel are killed as would be in a conventional war. This manner of war-making treats war as a video game. The pilots are located outside the theater, often inside the United States, and operate the drones by a joystick . The remote pilots, however, can suffer psychological repercussions from their actions.


The drone attacks often end up killing civilians, even children. Neither the intelligence nor the targeting is always accurate.

On the same day that the Herald-Leader published The Washington Post article, the Los Angeles Times published an article telling of Pakistani death squads that were going after informants to the U.S. drone program. The drone program has increased hatred of the United States.

The legality of the drone attacks according to international law has been questioned. The group Human Rights Watch sent a letter to President Obama on December 16, 2011 declaring that the US government should clarify fully and publicly its legal rationale for conducting targeted drone killings and the legal limits on such strikes. The group especially questioned the drone killings by the Central Intelligence Agency and stated the strikes should be confined to the U.S. armed forces.

The targeted killings and surveillance by drones are especially heinous. They are a dehumanizing and distancing way of war-making that, thus, make war-making all that much easier. War is getting completely out of hand. Instead of expanding our war-making with drones, we should be ending our War of Terror on Terror.

Droning

Below is a slideshow by CODEPINK'er MacGregor Eddy depicting the unmanned aircraft systems known as drones and calling for an end to their use.

MLK for Today

Monday, January 16 is the official holiday celebrating the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Many of his speeches and sermons, regardless of the circumstances of his time, resonate very much for our own time, for today. In today's lingo, one can say that Dr. King worked on behalf of the 99%.

Here is a portion of his speech delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City to the group called Clergy and Laity Concerned. The speech is entitled,  Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. (The full text may be found here.)

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. on the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

Occupy Wall Street and Human Rights

I have been thinking about Occupy Wall Street and related protests in regard to human rights and documents pertaining thereto.

This famous line and its extension are in our Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution includes this:

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes these rights:

Article 19.

• Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.

• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Article 23.

• (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
• (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
• (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
• (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.

• Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

 

 

Bridges Not Bombs

www.usaction.org

The Beginning of ...

October 6 was the beginning of the Afghanistan War ten years ago. Do I hear the word revenge? It also marked the beginning of our demise.

The total cost of our “security” since 9-11has been $7.6 trillion, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
homeland security, nuclear weapons, and the Pentagon base-budget.

According to costofwar.com, taxpayers in Kentucky's 6th Congressional District that includes my home  have paid $2.3 billion for total war spending (Iraq + Afghanistan) since FY01. For the same amount of money, the following could be provided:

• 991,000 Children Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR
• 39,000 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
• 334,000 Head Start Slots for Children for One Year OR
• 287,000 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
• 420,000 Students receiving Pell Grants of $5550 OR
•  1.1 million One Year Worth of Groceries for an Individual OR
• 472,000 People Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR
• 332,000 Fair Market Rent for One Bedroom Apartment for One Year OR
• 311,000 Military Veterans Receiving VA Medical Care for One Year.
• 
  

Regarding Afghanistan, its future depends on Afghans, not American soldiers. Immediately withdrawing all U.S. troops and contractors from Afghanistan will make Afghans, including its women safer by removing the funding source and legitimization of war lords and drug lords. The people of Afghanistan should determine their own future. 


Moreover, American national security depends on a less militarized foreign policy. It would not be naive and irresponsible to have a foreign policy based on what is called the Golden Rule. We should not do to others what we would not want done to ourselves. Violence begets violence.


“A decade of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, expending thousands of our soldiers lives and trillions of our taxdollars, has left us bankrupt. It's time to stop occupying other nations and instead occupy our own city squares, demanding an end to these wars,” explained CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin. Said CODEPINK organizer C.J. Minster, “We are standing up and demanding an immediate end to war and the beginning of a sustainable, renewable economy.” 


By ending the wars and taxing the rich and corporations, the U.S. can afford to create jobs, fund education, support healthcare, and create a sustainable, renewable economy.


I support the Occupations--not of Afghanistan, Iraq, or the Palestinian Territories, but the ones of Wall Street and American public squares.

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In the Sunday Paper

I am posting from today's Sunday Lexington Herald-Leader two quotes for thought.

The first is from contributing satirical columnist Larry Webster:

I would not be surprised if Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu turns out to be the Republican nominee, unless he wants to continue to run things from behind the scenes, or go over the head of our president to keep on seizing land from Arabs to give to people they hate, claiming God as a title source.

(From the article here.) 

The second is from John B. Quigley and it is from McClatchy-Tribune:

If some other country were sending pilotless aircraft over Nebraska to shoot and kill people they regard as threats, the Nebraska citizenry might not be too happy

(From the article here.)

Hmmm.

Listen to Reason

In his 2002 book, The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders, Jacob Needleman presciently writes for our Tea Party time. What were our Founders really saying, really meaning? What was the Constitution about? In the reminiscence of the Civil War, who and what was Lincoln? What is the meaning of this country called America? These are the kinds of questions Needleman tackles with historicity and insight.

One of the things he comes up with is this thing of the Founders with reason. He says that we have it all wrong. He writes this:

This capacity which [the Founders] called "reason" has little to do with what we usually refer to by that name. It is not something that can be programmed into a computer; nor is it a collection of information and data; nor is it the power to develop ingenious hypotheses for the purpose of short-term prediction and material advantage--all these are capacities of the mind which in their way are shared by the animals and many of which can even be performed better by machines. By "reason," the Founding Fathers are speaking of a power within man that is capable actively of apprehending the essential truth and form of universal reality and morality. It is a capacity that acts independently of individual subjective emotion or instinctual attraction. By being thus independent of emotional or subjective  preference, this "reason" is able to be the conduit not only of knowledge but of love, love that is not shackled to the personal and preferential.

The founders of American and the thinkers of the Enlightenment must be understood as searching and thinking in the train of the Judeo-Christian and Hellenic teachings that spoke of the active intellect as the most sacred element within human nature--what Plato called nous, the governing, presiding force within the republic of man. Certainly, one could look at Eastern teachings about the consciousness that is higher than ordinary thought and emotion, and such examinations of the great Eastern spiritual psychologies can help us gain a new perspective on our own Western ideas. But it is not necessary to rely on the Eastern material only--we have this teaching in our own culture; and the Founding Fathers, sometimes knowingly, and sometimes only by unconscious inheritance, were deeply influenced and attracted to this teaching about an independent power of the mind, a presiding power which can legislate to the whole only through the willing consent of the parts of ourselves to be governed by the attention of reason.

Maybe we don't know what we are missing. Maybe in these turbulent times, we need to listen to reason.

9-11!

9-11!

Wake up!

Help!

Er, not now!

Change!

Repent!

Who--me?

Who--US?

Like most Americans I remember where I was on 9-11-01. The only other time and event as such I remember where I was and what I was doing was November 22, 1963--the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I was in high school, in algebra class. We heard a radio announcement through the school’s public address system.

9-11-01 was a beautiful sunshiny warm day here in Frankfort, KY, my hometown, as it was in New York City and Washington, D.C.

I left my sick teenage daughter home watching TV while I took off for a walk. When I came back I found that the first plane had hit the World Trade Center. My daughter and I watched TV off and on throughout the day.

I watched a lot of TV after that--especially CNN and PBS. I have always appreciated the PBS coverage and follow-up--analytical, thoughtful, informative, educational, in-depth programming.

I also read a lot--both in print and online. I learned a lot about Islam, Afghanistan, American foreign policy, etc. I had already been learning and praying about the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. I knew there was a connection.

I was devastated by the American all-out military response of the Global War on Terror and I still am. I was horrified by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, especially knowing there was no connection there.

Following 9-11, I joined a monthly prayer vigil for peace. I took prayer walks in my neighborhood that included around the Kentucky Capitol Building. I helped organize a community celebration of the International Day of Peace on September 21.

Leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I stood at first alone and then with my husband weekly before Frankfort’s Federal Building to protest. I stood with a sign in front of Kentucky’s Old Capitol, next to the Federal Building during a holiday celebration. With a friend, I organized a large MoveOn.org candlelight vigil before the New Captiol.

I gave up when the invasion of Iraq actually happened. When I found out that the war was not going to be the cakewalk as promised I began protesting again.

I really do not have the exact timeline of protests and events. I will say that a few joined me in my protests, that we had had a few events, including observances of the International Day of Peace and Mother’s Day for Peace. In the process we became a chapter of CODEPINK: Women for Peace.

After weekly protest vigils for sometime, especially after President Obama was inaugurated, people began leaving the vigil and I finally became unable to do so. I still maintain a listserv for CODEPINK Frankfort with announcements, news, and e-actions.

I have been blogging for peace and I have written occasional Letters to the Editor on the matter of peace. I participate in online activism.  I have also joined and am now on the board of the Frankfort Chapter of the United Nations Association.

9-11 was my wake-up call. I have dedicated my life to peace. I try to live for peace and in peace. I pray for peace. I use the prayer and affirmation of the World Peace Prayer Society, May Peace Prevail On Earth! In fact, I Declare World Peace. I have also signed the Charter for Compassion believing that compassion and peace itself, not war, is the way to peace.

Along the way I have acquired a new faith--Unitarian Universalism (See here and here).

I am still reading and I am still learning, too. (See some of my reading at my Beautiful Books page. Also check out my Lilting Links page as well as the Links in the Sidebar.)  I wish I could do more in the active mode, but I am limited because of circumstances.

I do encourage others to join the work of peace. I wish my own country would do so, too.

According to CostofWar.com of the National Priorities Project, the United States has spent 1.3 trillion dollars in total war spending since fiscal year 2001.

That same amount of money, the Website says, could have provided for

• 646.0 million Children Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR
• 18.6 million Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
• 122.0 million Fair Market Rent for One Bedroom Apartment for One Year OR
• 165.8 million Head Start Slots for Children for One Year OR
• 602.2 million One Year Worth of Groceries for an Individual OR
• 259.2 million People Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR
• 159.9 million Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
• 227.1 million Students receiving Pell Grants of $5550.

Something is wrong here. Instead of bombing and making war on others, the United States needs to invest in its own. Yes, we can and must help others abroad, but war is not the way. We must also not neglect our own people. We must Bring Our War $$ Home!

9-11!

Wake-up!

Help!

Hope for Gaza ~ Update

The Audacity of Hope, the U.S. boat of Freedom Flotilla II, is now sitting outside Athens while being held by Greek authorities. Some passenger members, including Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright, are still on board.

Benjamin and Wright say they are in dismal, restricted conditions. Benjamin wrote in an e-mail that they are enclosed by gates and razor wire and baking in 95-degree heat. She also said:

Press are not allowed in; visitors are restricted and must be pre-approved. Our Embassy has refused to help us. Worse yet, when we try to protest at our Embassy, the Greek police detain us and take us to jail — on orders, they tell us, from the U.S. Embassy.

Ann Wright along with Regina Carey put out an Action Alert on USTOGAZA:

Athens, July 12, 2011, At 10 am Greek time today, the shore electricity was cut off to the Audacity of Hope, the U.S. Boat to Gaza, leaving us with no power. The boat has been imprisoned at the US Embassy/Greek Coast Guard dock, near Piraeus, Greece, just outside of Athens, since we tried to sail to Gaza on July 1. The Greek Coast Guard intercepted our small boat and hauled us into this compound.

 It is over 100 degrees inside the boat, and a Russian ship is spewing grain and dust over the entire area as it unloads grain. In addition, the off-loading noise the ship is making is above environmentally acceptable limits, sounding like a bad rock concert playing at the back of our boat! Six women are staying on board to protect the Audacity of Hope, since two boats heading to Gaza were already sabotaged in an attempt to prevent us from sailing to Gaza. Four of us are over 60. The Greek naval facility is co-located with a U.S. Embassy compound, which has one warehouse exclusively for the U.S. government, as well as a ramp for loading vehicles onto a ship. It also has a parking area for the wrecked cars of Americans who have been involved in traffic accidents plus a secure warehouse compound behind the ubiquitous high fence topped with razor wire and signs printed in both English and Greek in the U.S. government block style lettering.

 The Greek Coast Guard is probably caught in the middle and may be ready to release us, but government politics seems to want to keep us in port to appease the Israeli government, since the occupation of Palestine has been outsourced to the Greeks.

Folks are being asked to contact the Greek Embassy and the U.S. State Department.

I find it despicable at how Palestinians are treated, including those of Gaza, and how those are treated who, in solidarity with them, are trying to help them. It seems to me that the tail of Israel is wagging the dog of the United States and against its own citizens.

Hope for Gaza

The U.S. boat, Audacity of Hope, a member of Freedom Fotilla II, is trying to set sail from Athens, Greece bound for Gaza while armed with letters of hope for the people of Gaza from those in the United States.

The boat has been prevented from leaving Athens by Greek authorities. Just today the captain of the boat was arrested  over the ship's "seaworthiness" and for jeopardizing passengers' safety. Those associated with the boat believe the delays have been due to the interference of Israel and the United States.


The Audacity of Hope is one of nine boats of Freedom Flotilla II. The current flotilla is commemorating the flotilla of a year ago in which Israeli forces attacked the Turkish boat the “Mavi Marmara” on May 27, 2010  resulting in the deaths of nine passengers, one of them an American citizen. 


Among the boat's passengers are Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and Ret. Col. Ann Wright who has also been associated with CODEPINK. Benjamin has been blogging of this endeavor at CODEPINK's blog, PINKtank.


For more information, see the official website: USTOGAZA, CODEPINK's Gaza Freedom March website, and  the website of  Al Jazeera English.


I have been very concerned about the people of Gaza who have been denied justice, freedom, and peace. They are being treated against International Law, especially the Geneva Conventions. They are living or surviving in extremely dire circumstances. Many, especially children, are suffering from malnutrition. They have been cut off from the rest of the world while living in one of the world's most densely-populated places. They are human beings who are being treated like abused animals in a cage. I have formally endorsed the mission of the Audacity of Hope at the website USTOGAZA. Hope shouldn't have to be so audacious and bringing it shouldn't have to be either.


The Audacity of Hope should be allowed to sail.

Two and Two

I read two posts the other day that seemed to complement each other from two very different, super blogs.

The subject was stupidity and its antidote: thinking (along with prayer).

The first blog was of a rather political nature: The Book of Cletis, from a retired Kentucky teacher on the left.

The second blog was of a religious nature--Christian, to be exact: A Fresh Perspective, from a Frankfort, Kentucky preacher, progressive.

Here are a couple of excerpts.

The first is of the post from The Book of Cletis and called,  Quotes to Consider:

"... Stupidity never permeated the highest levels of power and influence before. Now it has. So it seems it is time to confront stupidity once again. We can no longer afford to sit back and wait for it to shrivel and die." Daniel Berry from The Book of Cletis

The second is of the post from A Fresh Perspecive and called, The Spirituality of Mindfulness:

To be awake is to be mindful of God’s mind, and part of this involves developing the capacity to think. One of the great challenges in American Christianity is to get Christians to think.

...

The capacity to resist conformity to the Domination System, to the powers that be, is difficult and must be nurtured. If we are spiritually sleepwalking there is no way we will have the inner strength and courage to resist conformity to the will of the powers that be, let alone be able discern what is good and right and just and loving.  

Read the full posts and especially check out the two blogs.

CODEPINK, Libya, and O'Reilly

CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin on The O'Reilly Factor regarding the the intervention in Libya:

Intervention in Libya

I have been quite concerned about the revolution/civil war that is going on in Libya. I am on the side of freedom and human rights for the people of that country who have been oppressed for forty years by their leader. I am, however, not happy with the military intervention by the coalition that includes the United States.  I believe along with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that peaceful means bring peaceful ends. I do not believe that war is the way to peace. I believe along with the Quakers that War Is Not the Answer.

I have seen some articles by others that seem to feel this way.

CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin and journalist, Charles Davis have a piece entitled,  Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs. They write, “If the bitter lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, though, it’s that wars of liberation exact a deadly toll on those they purportedly liberate – and that democracy doesn’t come on the back of a Tomahawk missile.” They tell us, the American taxpayers: “Instead of forking over $150 million a day to the weapons industry to attack Libya or selling $67 billion in weapons to the Saudis so they can repress not just their own people, but those of Bahrain, we – the ones being asked to forgo Social Security to help pay for empire – should demand those who purport to represent us in Washington stop arming dictators in our name.”

Richard Dawahare of Lexington wrote ‘Reality demands restraint’ for a blog on courier-journal.com. He concluded, “America should instead attend to the fallout of the continuing disaster in Japan, using our resources to help rebuild life, rather than reducing it in the sands of North Africa.” He also wrote a post on his own blog, The Peace Cow Field Journal, entitled, Attack on Libya seems right, is terribly wrong. “This smells like another neocon end-run using the veneer of humanitarianism as a smokescreen to hoodwink--ONCE AGAIN—an unwitting public,” he said there.

Alan J. Kuperman had a commentary,  5 things the U.S. should consider in Libya ,  in USA Today. Writing that intervening actually magnifies the threat to civilians in Libya and beyond, he wrote, “That is because armed uprisings, such as Libya's, typically provoke massive state retaliation that harms innocents.”  He listed five principles to guide humanitarian intervention, all of which apply to Libya.