Tag Archives: chaos

Let’s Trade in “Realpolitik” for More Realistic (Idealistic and Moral) Politics

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I just read a hasty translation of the remarkable letter written to President Bush by Iran’s President Ahmadinajad, the neocons’ newest target for demonization. In his passionate letter, this bold spiritual leader outlines his perspectives about international relations in terms of spirituality, religion, philosophy, history, and politics, courteously pointing out the west’s moral inconsistencies and asking many hard questions, while offering specific suggestions and proposals for world peace and for resolving conflicts.

 

I wonder whether President Bush will brush off his handlers’ warnings and actually dare read the letter? For just as Americans risk war by listening only to the current angry neocon drumbeat against Iran, so can Mr. Bush choose to risk peace by hearing out Mr. Ahmadinajad. Already the letter has been spun and skewed by war advocates as the usual self-serving drivel. I see it as a profound peace offering by a rising spiritual leader.

 

The letter is certainly must-reading for all wartime decision-makers such as the President, his Cabinet, and Congress. Consider the CIA’s secret overthrow of Iran’s popularly elected leader, Mossedegh, during the 1950’s, which led directly to the Iran hostage crisis; we may similarly ignore Ahmadinajad’s missive now to our peril. Americans who refuse to acknowledge our exploitative past, or to dialogue with our designated “enemies,” may regret such oversight at leisure, as we did on 9/11, when so few Americans understood—as too few do still—why America is the target of so much fear and hatred.

 

Even before this letter, our wrathful right wing media had already enthusiastically rolled out their propaganda machines to denounce Ahmadinajad’s previous speeches and writing. For indeed, our government cannot rouse our soldiers to kill and die, and our citizens to sacrifice for distant wars, unless they first convince us that each new “enemy” is the devil incarnate.

 

Joining with demagogues and fanatics in Israel, fear-mongering spinmeisters have portrayed Ahmadinajad as determined to wipe out all the Jews in Israel. To be sure, he is disgusted with the current regime and its unqualified American support. However, he has said he would support a fair referendum there, and I think he would welcome a regime which treated peaceful Jews, Christians, and Muslims with equal respect and rights.

 

Ahmadinajad has a sterling international reputation as a genuinely pious, erudite Muslim teacher and statesman. His letter to President Bush echoes many perspectives of our own American political left. Yet he is portrayed by the Bush administration as a hardliner, an extremist conservative religious fanatic.

 

This too-familiar pre-war fear-and-hate fest has been so done before, first with Saddam Hussein, then with Moqtada al-Sadr, then with bin Laden, and now with Ahmadinajad. I’m sick of watching my country rush blindly into more bullying excesses, while always draping our aggressions in saintliness.

 

I have no respect for the Bush-Cheney-Rice strategy for solving our energy crises by controlling the price and flow of oil through Mideast political and military coercion. It’s not nice, and has been far too pricey (not, of course, for oil companies) and has never really worked, especially when you count the whole cost of our lengthy dalliance with Saddam Hussein.

 

I’m not alone in my distaste for global bullies, either. No one likes schoolyard bullies who throw their weight around, thinking only of themselves, not caring who gets hurt so long as they get what they want. Powerful bullies may prevail in the short run, may even gain opportunistic allies eager to share in the spoils of easy wars against weaker opponents. But soon enough, everyone on the playground finally gets sick of being pushed around, and all gang up to confront the bully.

 

And the bigger the bully, the harder he falls.

 

Far from offering Americans security and safety, belligerent approaches to international relations create only more enemies, drain our coffers, strain our political freedoms, distract our leaders from solving our real problems, demean our integrity, lower our national pride and morale, ruin our reputation, weaken our alliances, threaten our trade, destroy untold lives, and do nothing at all to make us safer than we were before. We can stand up for our traditional rights and freedoms without insisting that hard, practical considerations and the advancement of our own expansionist national interests are the sole principles of our interactions with others.

 

It is time to retire America’s realpolitik approach to foreign policy. Even if Americans did choose to embrace such an anachronistic approach to international politics—and few thinking Americans would, for we have a strong foundation in a loving, giving Judeo-Christian ethic—even then, realpolitik makes no sense.

 

The only nations fighting defensive wars these days are those with desirable resources, or historically-contested lands of economic significance and/or strategic value. The United States is virtually alone in being so raw, young, and untouched by historical predations as to insert herself in many overt and covert distant wars of aggression simultaneously in many places. Visualize a bull in a china shop…..

 

The time is right for an international, grassroots groundswell, a spiritual/political movement insisting upon arms reduction by all parties, and a strong international policy of peaceful acceptance and coexistence. The nations which will prevail in the world of the future are those which now work cooperatively with others, strive to set a high moral example, and offer leadership in support of peaceful, productive lives for all.

 

The whole idea of fighting a war on terrorism is negative and backward. Why not throw a party instead, hosting it on age-old patriotic American and Judeo-Christian themes so dear to us—the golden rule, and respect and support for all human beings everywhere—and invite everyone? Why not co-opt all the world’s leaders by asking them to join us in fighting, not one another, but the real problems of the 21st century—disease, injustice, depravity, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence itself?

 

The peacemakers in our midst cannot hurt us, whether they be followers of Ahmadinajad or a newly chastened and hopeful George W. Bush. We need more, not fewer, experienced, visionary, peace-minded foreign policy experts, assigned to a new Department of Peace, who can help us realize the best and brightest policies of a new realism which combines hard and soft power in ways that are indeed realistic.

 

Winner-take-all is simply not a political option anymore. None of us will ever be able to climb higher than our lowliest fellow-climbers, for the world is at last far too interconnected. We cannot harm and neglect our neighbors near or far without that harm coming back, sooner than we can imagine, to haunt our own children and grandchildren, like chickens come home to roost.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fair Negotiations with Iran. NOT.

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When my little sister and I would argue over a candy bar, my mom would remind us the only way to divide anything up fairly was to let one side divide, and the other side choose.

 

So the Bush administration has divvied up fairly (they say) all that is at stake in their looming war with Iran. Yet Iran still seems stubbornly “diplophobic,” as David Ignatius expresses it, and refuses to come to the negotiating table. Surely the opening terms of the negotiation are reasonable and unbiased?

 

For each of the terms of the negotiation listed below, select the ones which a nation truly committed to sovereignty, respect, and fairness within the world community of nations might choose:

 

Create the largest, most powerful military force in history, by far, and use it to advance far-flung interests;

 

Create a military force suitable to repel invaders;

 

Invade, intervene, colonize, economically exploit, set up puppet dictatorships, and politically and militarily interfere with the sovereignty of many nations near and far;

 

Attempt to repel invaders;

 

Invade and displace the residents of distant lands in order to establish military bases; 

 

Drop atomic bombs on civilian populations of other nations;

 

Develop, use, and share chemical weapons with allies; arm allies and overlook their acquisition of atomic weapons;

 

Develop and buy the natural resources of other (weaker) countries on one's own terms;

 

Invade other nations on trumped-up pretexts, blow up whatever/whomever, manipulate others' sovereignty and traditions, defy world opinion, and build huge, permanent military installations on foreign land, settling down wherever they want in order to favorably control the flow and price of scarce resources;

 

Send secret agents to assassinate or remove popular leaders and to undermine democratic elections, near and far;

 

Build thousands of conventional, chemical, and nuclear weapons, as well as secretive permanent installations, in order to study biological weapons; develop new kinds of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons—and use such weapons against any countries which “might” someday threaten their “interests,” or those of their allies;

 

Develop and use conventional weapons when actually invaded;

 

Threaten nuclear annihilation when other nations research nuclear technology; 

 

Develop nuclear energy technology for one's own energy needs;

 

Torture and hold suspected enemies indefinitely without due process of law;

 

Be the nation with the “might” that makes “right,” with the gold that makes the rules, with the freedom to disregard international opinion and world governing and legal bodies, choosing to do what it wants, when it wants, where it wants, to whomever it wants.

 

International fairness is demonstrated when individual nations hold themselves to the same high international standards of behavior they expect from others. America is the biggest and strongest nation among equals, established under the highest principles, ideals and values; we can also choose to become the humblest, the most respected, even the most loved nation, by reflecting in our international policies our deeply-held belief that all men truly are created equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and by living the golden rule–treating all others as we would like to be treated.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Have Seen the Future of Latino Immigration—and It Is Good

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The hair on my arms stood up as I tuned in my car radio to the raucous enthusiasm of the immigrant protest rally aired recently on C-Span. It was “déjà vu all over again” as I recalled my own youthful experiences with immigrants and racism in the very hispanic city of San Antonio.

 

For I have seen the future of Latino immigration in America before, and it is good.

 

My military family moved to San Antonio during the late 1950’s, my middle school years. We had already moved eight times before, and I spent five of those years learning in overseas post schools along with a multiracial and multiethnic group of classmates all living middle-class lives. Transferring now into a San Antonio off-post public school situated in a sharply divided socioeconomic setting, I was surprised to be suddenly thrown in among a very large number of poor latinos, and shocked to see how unkindly they were treated by my anglo classmates.

 

My youthful ideals and sensibilities were greatly offended by such discrimination, but like many—perhaps most—youthful innocents, I was confused and easily led by the mean immoral majority, who quickly taught this eager new girl that “we” didn’t “like” “them”—and certainly didn’t mix with them.

 

My parents weren’t much help either. When I protested the injustice I saw so clearly at school, they lamely agreed with my moral indignation against racism, but also strongly registered their preference that I not choose to socialize with children who weren’t “like us”—i.e., clean, educated, privileged, advantaged.

 

A few of my teachers treated all students respectfully, but the general consensus about “meskins” in my school was a sweeping generalization that they were, as a race, all dirty, poor, immoral, violent, sneaky, and “too stupid” to know how to speak English. The convenient filter of race soon blurred my eyes to the many differences among these children, and eventually I clumped them all, even the occasional middle-class and native-English speaking exceptions, into the same rejected bunch I thought of as “mexican.”

 

Through whispered conversations, I soon “knew” what my schoolmates “knew”—that all these kids were children of “illegals” who had snuck across the river, and were now sneaking around in bushes and backrooms doing filthy jobs our parents wouldn't dream of doing, living in hovels, and probably stealing and breaking other laws too. We exchanged warnings about their poor side of town: don’t go near the San Antonio River unless you want to get knifed by a “mex”…. The wealthiest among my friends claimed to “own a ‘wet’ (‘wetback’) or two,” whom their parents kept hidden away on distant ranches in shacks stocked with sacks of beans, to chop cedar and clear brush in the searing sun, at the cost of pennies a day.

 

My classmates generally viewed the influx of Mexican immigrants with suspicion and disgust. Sometimes we sneered at them, even fought them as they grouped together defensively—but mostly we ignored them. I went, too quickly, from feeling righteously indignant, to apathy, to feeling more “in the know” about the “appropriate” way to feel and act—that is, prejudicially.

 

Of course, I knew nothing about how hard it can be to get ahead when you’re poor, or the immense barriers of linguistic disadvantage, or the challenges of a new life in a different culture, especially an illegal life. I saw without recognizing only the commonalities of poverty; indeed, many of my Latino classmates were very dirty, their clothes were smelly, they did seem ignorant, and they spoke English poorly.

 

I’m especially sad when I remember how kind many of the Latino children were to me when I first enrolled. Many seemed friendly, attractive, and fun to this lonely new girl. Too quickly, though, I “knew better” and pulled away from them, frightened by the strong social prohibition against socializing with “mexes.” I had already begun to make friends with some who were probably pleasantly surprised to be greeted initially with no prejudice; I’m sure my transformation and confused withdrawal hurt many feelings.

 

Fast-forward now forty years, to the year my family returned to San Antonio to care for my dying father. To my delight, I found San Antonio completely changed, a bright, working city ornamented by a proud Hispanic cultural heritage. During that difficult year of family losses, all of my childhood prejudices were firmly replaced with admiration and deep gratitude, as I worked my way through a long line of outstanding care-giving and service professionals, nearly all native-English speaking, educated, middle and upper-class Latinos.

 

From that ragtag bunch of schoolmates of yesteryear, no doubt themselves largely parented by penniless, ignorant laborers who dared their way across the border, had come this impressive line of smiling, capable, courteous, faith-driven professionals. Where “mexicans” had previously been relegated only to San Antonio’s lowest social classes, now they were the home-care aides who tenderly washed and fed my father, the capable nurses who treated him, the orderlies who gently attended him in hospital, the capable doctors who set his broken hip, the hospice workers who comforted us, the owners of the funeral home, and the directors who helped us plan his funeral.

Latinos now ably ran much of the city, blending in with the anglo minority attractively—and patriotically. As I hurried through busy days, helpful Latino faces sold me groceries and hardware, delivered our packages, repaired our dishwasher, patrolled the streets, and repaired phone wires. My father’s accountant was hispanic, as was his attorney.

 

I remember my childhood astonishment when I overheard comments about a local “mexican,” Henry B. Gonzalez, was became an influential national politician. Later, I learned that another “Chicano,” Henry Cisneros, had worked to transform the whole city for Hemisfair, refurbishing the San Antonio River Walk, which later became one of the world’s safest and most colorful international tourist draws. A multitude of Hispanic civic and political leaders followed in their footsteps. As an ignorant young girl, however, I found it all much too confusing. How could these apparently benevolent leaders possibly be drawn from that same lowly pool of apparent lowlifes which I had tragically learned to exclude from my own personal repertoire of “nice people”—or, perhaps, “human beings?”

 

The San Antonio of today is a multicultural treat, largely run by courteous, ambitious Latinos. All those I met during that painful year resembled, in their work ethic and attitude, our Attorney General Alberto Gonzales—genial, earnest, hard-working, well-intentioned, people of faith.

 

Welcome to the America of the future, and more power to it.

 

Immigrants break no law they ever had a chance to democratically vote upon. Immigrants are doing exactly what any of us would do for ourselves and for our families, were we faced with an impossible present and future—if only we could find the daring and the support necessary to pick up, move on, and start over.

 

No other country is spending billions to guard its borders from terrorists, although quite a few nations are presently scrambling to arm themselves against our American invasions. No expensive walls are being built to keep terrorists out of Canada, China, Norway, or Sweden? And why not? Each of these countries has a similarly long, porous border, like ours, but unlike the U.S.A., these countries have friendly, cooperative foreign policies—i.e., fewer enemies.

 

When our politicians decide to create fewer deadly enemies with unkind trade and foreign policies, and focus instead on offering generous, accepting policies which embrace the world’s problems as our own, we won’t waste so much money protecting our borders from terrorists. Maybe we’ll pour some of that money into a better life for ourselves and for the immigrants we need to help make this country great again.

 

When I turned off my radio, I said a prayer for all persistent immigrants, for their admirable struggle to make a better life, and for the America we will all work to build together. Because someday soon these adventurers will claim for themselves the same bright prize their audacious countrymen have claimed throughout our history, the grandest lottery ticket gamble of all, the chance to win U.S. citizenship.

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ninety Lives … For What They’re Worth

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My favorite news source is newspapers, but every few weeks I get my ironing done with the Sunday weekly news roundup shows on television. Yesterday, watching George Stephanopoulos, Inside Washington, Face the Nation, and Meet the Press, I became painfully aware that not a single mention had been made, even in passing, of the ninety lives lost in a Baghdad mosque earlier in the week.

 

Reporters and interviewees droned on about “not one more American soldier,” while George Stephanopoulos thoughtfully rolled his register of American lives tragically cut short thousands of miles from home. Hours were devoted to gleeful analysis of what Libby knew and what Bush didn’t. Bernadette Peters made a generous appeal for one of my favorite causes, adoption of America’s homeless pets.

 

Yet during those three hours on ABC, CBS, and NBC, not a single image or voice was raised to note the horrific loss of those ninety lives in Baghdad.

 

The American media—and Americans in general—are simply missing the point. The point is, respect and support for human life everywhere, not just for Americans. It’s as if, by example, we somehow imagine it to be in our best interest to urge all nations everywhere to adopt our own peculiar brand of tunnel-visioned “me-first” patriotism.

 

Apparently, Americans see planet Earth as a tidy jigsaw puzzle where self-sufficient clumps of humanity are divided perpetually into impermeable nations separated by high, immutable stone walls that God himself built, instead of a tiny and fragile living planet where we are all so interdependent that we share the very air we breathe, and every drop we drink.

 

Nationalism and patriotism are just fine and dandy in their place–a very limited place of proud achievement, unique traditions, and dedication to local civic responsibilities. But patriotism and nationalism go too far when they pander to the illusion that human life elsewhere is somehow less important than the lives of “we Americans”—as if it could be possible that lives in one nation could somehow be of greater value than other lives.

 

Since when do traditional American values speak only for American citizens? Since when do our philosophies declare all men created equal, with Americans just a little more equal than all the rest? Since when does Jesus love the little children of the world, especially American children?

 

What does it mean to be an American, a patriot? If it means some kind of Orwellian doublespeak where we turn our backs on the rest of the world, I don’t want any part of it.

 

Americans couldn’t have been more touched by the international outpouring of empathy when our twin towers fell. Attention was paid. Moments of silence were shared. Candles were lit. Prayers from every religious faith were invoked in every language. Helping hands reached across the waters. Schoolchildren collected pennies for victims’ families.

 

For that one moment, everyone cared—not because of, or even in spite of the fact that the victims were Americans—but because human beings were at one moment peacefully pursuing happiness and the next moment they were dead. Human beings. Not Americans, or Chinese, or Hutus, or Shiites. Human beings, upon whom all the highest moral values of every religious and ethical system have forever been built.

 

Every day, in every corner of the world, far more people die hourly from the consequences of economic and political violence—curable diseases, starvation, poverty,  war—than died in that mosque, or in the twin towers, for that matter.

 

But that’s not the point. The point is, it’s not about Iraqis, or Jews, or Americans. It’s about people who are needlessly dying from human violence and indifference, people whose bodies are mangled and lives shattered. People with faces and names, of every nationality, who once had families and dreams and prayers and work that needed to be done. They're all gone.

 

News analysts have a dual role, to both reflect and create public attitude. This Sunday’s weekly news roundup created and reflected total American indifference to the suffering of human beings in the Middle East. Our otherwise distinguished news analysts were so busy interrupting each other over the fall of DeLay and the immigration gridlock in Congress that they couldn’t spare a moment to mention the fact that last week, the equivalent of a whole Shiite village was blown to hell as they gathered to pray to the very same God America prays to, even if we call Him by a different name.

 

And Americans are by no means unaccountable. Because no matter how you read the tea leaves, our violent hand has left its mark indelibly on that anguished region. The tyrannical power of Saddam Hussein was an American creation. The nation of Iraq itself was an arbitrary western notion forcefully assembled from three historically distinct ethnicities. The very fact that these three mutually-distrustful factions are at this very moment bristling with high-tech arms they can hardly resist using to annihilate each other in a civil war, out of sheer desperation and despair, is almost entirely due to the generosity of the American military-industrial complex and its imported violent solutions to the region’s problems.

 

What will it take for the west to recognize and support the majority of Muslims who repeatedly pay the price of decades of violent occupation and interference with almost inhuman endurance, responding stoically with non-violence, forbearance, order, and faith? What does it take to earn American respect and compassion for this vast majority peacefully enduring the fires of hell through no fault of their own?

 

And what kind of unholy armageddon will it take for George Bush to stand up and say, This is not right. This is wrong. This is evil. This will not stand.

 

Americans claim to have democratically decided to throw $500 billion of our hard-earned taxpayers’-dollars—not to mention our darling children and grandchildren—toward the goal of bestowing freedom and democracy upon our beloved Iraqi friends. Or has a tiny extremist group of neocon warmongers managed to misuse our democratic processes so as to herd American citizens around like sheep, in hopes that when Iraq is similarly safely “democratized,” we will be able to commandeer Iraqi oil by riding herd on those citizens, as well.

 

If this is not the case, if we so love the Iraqis that we're willing to put our economy and our progeny's lives on the line, why can’t we manage to come up with just one silent moment of programming time during three hours of major-network weekly news roundups in order to show the minimum of respect for the ninety murdered souls on whose behalf we’re supposedly fighting and dying?

 

The American media goes absolutely crazy, and the American people spare no expense, when a single American miner can be rescued from an explosion, when an American child is pulled from the rubble of a well or a hurricane, a lost American pilot plucked from the ocean. But we harden our hearts, press our lips together, and look away when the victims are “others.”

 

Our own violent culture is the one which stands to lose the most from this terrible attitude. What is it with us? Are we getting bored? Have we seen too many damn mosque bombings to move us anymore? Is it like, ho-hum, more collateral damage, another suicide bombing, please change the channel to a good Schwarzenegger movie? Is this the kind of coldhearted, narrow-minded, mean-spirited world that American parents want to leave their bereft children alone in someday, a meaningless, terrifying one that hates each other?

 

Perhaps some sense can come from this mosque bombing if Americans and all other nations consecrate the ground of these martyrs by insisting that this be the last bombing, the one which finally turns the violence around, that makes everyone realize that enough is enough. Are we waiting for global thermonuclear war to force us into that decision?

 

It’s time to bind up all nations’ wounds, to care for the widow and the orphan, and to dedicate ourselves to a new birth of freedom from human violence, not just for the people of the Middle East, but for all of us, for all our children, everywhere.

 

The world is not the economic and geopolitical chessboard of some tiny extremist splinter group, with winner-take-all the unfair object of their game. If Americans care about all people, as I know we do, we need to play a different game entirely, one with a golden rule which treats all others everywhere just exactly as we would like to be treated. The object of the game is respect and support for the quality of human life everywhere. 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.com

 

 

 

 

 

America the Blind … and the Beautiful

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I recently tried to explain to a friend why I often stand up with our local Women In Black in their silent vigils of mourning, witness, and solidarity with victims of violence everywhere.

 

“What violence have you ever experienced?” she asked me, a little accusingly.

 

“Well, before I was born, my father fought in World War II, and…”

 

“War isn’t violence!”

 

Probably my friend was finding it as difficult to articulate her honest beliefs as I was. Hers might go something like this: “America isn’t a violent culture like so many others. We’re a caring and peaceful people minding our own business, and when we fight a distant war, we’re only trying to cleanly wipe out violent individuals elsewhere who would hurt us and others, terrorists who would otherwise bring violence to our peaceful and porous borders. I’m upset that you would protest war, itself, as unwelcome violence, when our brave soldiers are risking their lives to protect us from a war that someone else started. Why aren’t you protesting their violence, and leaving our poor soldiers alone?”

 

How do I explain myself to privileged Americans like my friend, who, from her comfortable, insulated perch, is persuaded that the violence spreading across the globe is neither America’s fault nor its problem, and that finding a peaceful solution isn’t America’s responsibility?

 

And how can I begin to share with my friend and others of like mind, the conclusions that I’ve drawn from a lifetime of study, not only of daily news reporting, but also of the broad field of American history and politics—far beyond the local schoolboard-censored, pride-building high school American History textbook summaries of patriotism we are all encouraged to swallow so unskeptically during our innocent, vulnerable years—often the only history many Americans ever study.

 

I, too, rapturously memorized all the glorious civics-textbook paeans to our truly admirable national ideals and values, during my childhood years on military bases as a “service brat” daughter of a highly-decorated war hero and career officer—and I still hold to all of them, with all my heart.

 

But I’ve also read, in addition, many carefully-documented public records of another long, sad, and well-repressed history of American exploitation, aggression, and injustice, which only recently (thanks to the internet) has become more widely acknowledged—tragic stories of the greatest nation on earth, built upon, not only our many positive qualities and deeds, but also upon military might, invasion, occupation, political oppression, colonialism, tyranny, torture, murder, and all the complex economics of greed.

 

And we’re still at it….

 

And we need to stop. For life on earth itself is at stake.

 

When the twin towers fell, all of America cried out in confusion, “Why do they hate us?”

 

To this day, too few Americans understand why so many around the world resent the beloved storybook America of their childhood experience. Gradually, though, many citizens are coming to a new awareness that our unparalleled economic and military might has as often been used for evil as for good.

 

Americans have wasted a lot of time and lives wallowing in well-intentioned ignorance. We’ve been lied to by politicians and presidents, historians and international tycoons, many of whom themselves were similarly duped. And if we have been too ready to believe them, we can now as willingly move forward, sadder and wiser, to make fewer mistakes.

 

If God expected Americans—or citizens of any nation—to be infallible, he would have made us all that way. The American nation is certainly not alone in having a mixed history. Every other nation, and all other peoples, are equally susceptible to harmful policies and propaganda by the many who would profit from political and religious distortions. The same god, however, who reserved vengeance for himself alone also sent his son to teach of his infinite love and forgiveness. Perhaps people learn best from mistakes; God in his wisdom apparently has decided to let us all make as many as we need to make, in order to learn what we need to know.

 

No solutions to our many current problems can be found in blame, retaliation, or attack. The peoples of our brave new interconnected earth will only move forward together when offered clear moral leadership, strong examples of international unity and forgiveness, and powerful visions of a peaceful future in which people everywhere are free to seek happiness and avoid suffering.

 

We will never overcome ignorance, injustice, or guilt by adding to their sum, just as war can never conquer war, and hatred always increases hatred. Only the light of non-violent cooperation can put out the darkness hidden in so many corners of the world.

 

Senate Bill # 1756 proposes a new cabinet-level Department of Peace, which will help us achieve our highest American ideals. Tell your friends and colleagues about this bill, and call and write your Congresspersons….

 

We can become the world’s greatest exporter, not of war, weapons, and tragedy, but instead, of peace, justice, and the true American way, a way that treats all others as we would wish to be treated, the way of the golden rule, offering acceptance and support for the quality of human life everywhere.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Condoleezza Rice Says Global Harmony Is Not the Business of Government

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At a recent press conference in Great Britain, Condoleezza Rice stuttered uncharacteristically when she was asked about a possible joint commission (of England, Ireland, and Australia) to promote global harmony. Ms. Rice responded that global harmony was not the business of government, but rather, a matter of concern for private citizens.

 

I always thought that the primary business of any state department worth its salt in the twenty-first century was global harmony. Certainly a “secure, democratic, and prosperous world” as pledged by the current U.S. Department of State’s mission statement, implies global harmony. Surely the highly-specialized, expensive training of our immense diplomatic corps specifically prepares them for careers of building and maintaining strong, positive foreign relationships.

 

Considering the many conflicts that daily arise around the globe, promotion of global harmony ought to be someone’s job, someone who is well-staffed, well-budgeted, and high profile, like Rice. I cannot be the only taxpayer disappointed to find out that, despite all that money we spend on the Department of State, no one in government is currently in charge of pursuing global harmony.

 

Perhaps Rice thinks the State Department is in the nineteenth-century diplomatic business of exclusively looking out for only our own nation’s interests, a childishly narrow, anachronistic, and frankly impossible goal that it is time to put away. Unfortunately, Rice still seems determined to strategically split up the world into enemies and allies, and to go about flexing and flaunting America’s fast-waning military muscle to unkindly wheel and deal in patronage, espionage, economic dominance, and power struggles.

 

Which is too bad, since, as Albert Einstein once observed, “A country cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war.” With Rice and others in our current administration busy preparing for war, who is left to prepare for peace?

 

Rice’s tough-cop, saber-rattling approach to throwing around what little unsquandered moral weight we have left can never promote a peaceful, productive America. The only long-term diplomatic relationship that has ever worked successfully has been one established along the lines of the golden rule—in which all diplomats offer one another the kind of justice which they would wish to be offered, themselves. Unfortunately, although Rice is a smart woman who can surely see no advantage to staying stuck in the past, the golden rule is not in her current play- or style-book. We await her transformation.

 

Our current aggressive diplomatic approaches are grounded in old thinking—in fear, selfishness, and greed, which produce nothing but immensely costly blowback in the long term, and anything but peace and prosperity for American citizens. A golden-rule approach to millennial American politics and diplomacy would be far more effective, and far less costly in every sense.

 

Passing the bill currently in Congress establishing a cabinet-level Department of Peace (Senate Bill #1756) will do much to support all cabinet departments in rethinking their roles in terms of global harmony—which is very much the business of government, and of all taxpaying citizens—perhaps even our most important business.

 

 

 

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A Poem About Women In Black by Eppy

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WHAT WE DO

 

Women in black

Witness violence

Everywhere

In vigils of

Silent solidarity

Mourn all victims

All of us

 

Light candles

For the attacked

Abused abandoned

Tortured murdered

Lift

All who hurt

Within

 

A circle of peace

Illuminating night

Leaving

No one

Not one

Outside alone

In darkness

 

 

Comment: We can’t stop tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, heartaches, disappointments, and death. We can, however, teach and learn peace, and finally put an end to violence, the most preventable cause of human suffering.

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Another Holocaust?

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When Hitler painted all Jews everywhere with his hate-filled brush, many people were caught up in his scary “logic,” and the result was a Holocaust. Today’s Jews should be the group least susceptible to the rampant prejudice that is currently damning all of Islam with sweeping fear-based generalizations. The lesson of the Holocaust for all of us is never again should anyone buy into paranoia and bigotry concerning a whole people, culture, religion, ethnicity, or lifestyle.

 

Yet, here we go again.

 

If you don’t like some Muslims (or Jews or Chinese or Hutus …) well, that’s human. But if you hate and fear most (Muslims) because you think they’re all pretty much the same, that’s ignorance and prejudice.

 

It’s simply not true that most Muslims are quarrelsome, narrow-minded, blood-thirsty fanatics out to dominate the world. Yet I have recently heard that repugnant argument for war from Jews and Christians alike.

 

Of course we’re all frightened, Muslims too. But violent extremists are found in every culture. America had its own bloody civil war, not to mention lynchings, attacks on civil rights marchers and labor unions, gang wars, office and schoolyard shootings, rapes, widespread child and domestic abuse, crime, and murder. We have our own home-grown steady supply of trigger-happy nutcases, D.C. snipers, Unabombers, and Oklahoma terrorists, all continually egged on into fear and violence by faithless media demagogues and opportunistic politicians, in just the same way that Hitler once terrified the German citizenry into insanity.

 

FDR gently reminded us that the only thing we have to fear is: fear, itself. During this difficult time, may we have cool heads, loving hearts, open minds, and an abiding faith in the golden rule, so that we may respect and support all of God’s beloved children, everywhere.

 

Jim Wallis Practices God’s Politics

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Jim Wallis’ rich and thought-provoking exploration, God’s Politics, will stimulate a generation of dialogue at the intersection of faith, politics, and contemporary culture. Wallis’ mental exuberance and hyperactivity are easily balanced by his brilliance, generosity, and love. God’s Politics is a must-read.

 

Wallis argues that values based in faith must inspire American politics, and that this right was guaranteed by our founders when they separated church and state. Wallis feels that the very survival of America’s social fabric depends upon the emergence of political and cultural leaders having a clear vision of justice, peace, environmental stewardship, family, and consistent-value-of-life ethics grounded in the traditions of acceptance, forgiveness, and love preached by the biblical prophets (including, of course, Jesus.) To Wallis, faith cannot ignore poverty, injustice, war, and other attacks upon humanity, nor mean-spiritedly criminalize or marginalize minority voices and choices, nor turn away from those everywhere made in the image of God.

 

I agree with Wallis that “faith…prefers international community over nationalist religion…” adding my hope that he will consider advocating for respect and support now for the quality of human life everywhere as the highest possible ethical stance (similar to the Catholic doctrine of the value and inviolability of human life.) Acceptance of this stance supersedes patriotism and nationalism, which, however noble, engender polarizing fears that lead to ethnocentrism, hatred, war, injustice, unfriendly competition, and indifference to suffering in other nations.

 

Wallis offers a wonderful example of a compassionate prophetic voice and life which many will be inspired to emulate. As a rallying cry, though, the concept of “prophetic faith” is not quite universal enough to provide a satisfying ethical framework for political discourse in a multicultural democracy, injecting instead a degree of divisiveness into Wallis' otherwise effective argument, rather than the clarity and commonality he intended. Just deciding which and whose prophets to include would assure a fractious, ultimately irresolvable argument. Furthermore, the words “prophetic faith” unnecessarily threaten many non-religious citizens, while even religious citizens disagree as to which prophets are foundational.

 

Also, although clearly Jesus spoke with a prophetic voice, many Christians would be confused and offended if Jesus were even temporarily and merely metaphorically reduced to the status of “prophet.”

 

Does Wallis’ concept of “prophetic faith” embrace the teachings of the wide variety of major/minor prophets from all major/minor world faiths—say, Confucius, Mohammed, “Buddha,” Mao, Marx, the minor biblical prophets, etc? On what basis would he include or exclude prophets?

 

Will Wallis include other, often controversial, modern-day (dead) “prophets”–Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billy Graham, Pope John Paul, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and others in the prophetic tradition? If so, whom, and on what basis? What about present-day prophets—all visionary moral leaders fitting Wallis’ definition of “prophet”—such as Jim Wallis himself, Jimmy Carter, Pat Buchanan, Oprah, Jim Carroll, Marianne Williamson, the Dalai Lama, Pope Benedict, George Bush, Gordon Hinckley, Bono, etc?

 

A promising alternative framework for moral political discourse offering a common unifying vision acceptable to all philosophical and religious bases would be “respect and support now for the quality of human life everywhere,” a belief that Americans already embrace, i.e., “all men are created equal.” The rest of the world would jump at the chance to move in this direction along with the U.S.

 

No successful political movement would dare reject patriotism; however, a political movement could successfully promote “respect and support now for the quality of human life everywhere” as “the highest moral value,” leaving to individual discussion the various moral implications of this stance.

 

Wallis‘ argument in favor of choosing a consistent ethic of human life, with its important implications for poverty, injustice, war, violence, etc., fits in perfectly with the above-declared “highest moral value.” His excellent “test” question—“How are the children doing?” also fits well. So too would “Golden Rule Politics” (see other essays on Golden Rule Politics at www.epharmony.com ).

 

Mr. Wallis is the founder of Sojourners, a network of Christians working for justice and peace. He edits the acclaimed Sojourners magazine, is a powerful and popular speaker, the author of seven books, a Harvard lecturer, and the founder of Call to Renewal.

 

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Transfixed by Lost in Translation

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Lost in Translation is my (all-time) favorite movie. With so many sad movies about sexual exploitation floating around, it’s a refresher to see two nice, interesting people exchange such powerful, passionate, platonic gifts during a brief, innocent time, without taking advantage of or hurting one another, and leaving one another happier and stronger.

 

Sofia Coppola’s complex, beautiful, diverse sensibilities drench each frame with implications… revelations… perturbations…. Like all perfect movies, this one is rich, deep, lavishly-textured, and gorgeously-layered. Coppola adds not a questionable jot nor extraneous tittle, and leaves out nothing necessary to her narrative or contemplation. She attends masterfully to imagery, editing, framing, character, dialogue, tension, narrative, symbol, improvisation, serendipity…a small sampling of her range of talents, may she live long and prosper in the movie-making business.

 

I lived for a few childhood years in Tokyo during the American post-war occupation, and took away beautiful, evanescent impressions, so perhaps I’m more susceptible to the delights of this movie than your typical movie-goer. Watching Lost in Translation, I'm enchanted both by remembered charms and recent technological innovations, as well as by the awkward Japanese embrace of things western.

 

Lost in Translation is perfectly titled, because Copolla shines her tragicomic vision on the challenges each of us, no matter how talented or well-intentioned, face in communicating, caring, and empathizing across the mile-high/-wide/-deep chasm of human individual differences. Copolla’s laser gaze scintillates not only cultural barriers such as language and custom, but universal obstacles as well—differences in gender, age, social class, lifestyle, goals, values, interests, backgrounds, personalities—and even the molehills and mountains of distance and time.

 

Lost in Translation is hilarious, even more-so for Japanophiles. I’ve seen it many times, and still am cajoled into explosive snorts. Like any great lover, Copolla brings knowledge, appreciation, honesty, and a creative, playful intimacy to the peculiar amusements and benefits of relating to the Japanese. Japanese culture has its many endearing and frustrating quirks, as do all cultures; Copolla chooses to laugh equally good-naturedly and respectfully at eastern and western pecadilloes.

 

I cannot imagine a soundtrack more thoughtfully selected or edited in support of the shifting impressions, emotions, and experiences Coppola develops in each new scene.

 

Bill Murray’s unique talents are all on glorious display, as are Scarlett Johannsen’s equally bounteous ones, which have an umplumbable feel to them. She defiantly withholds an illusive, precious, sensuous little secret—like Garbo’s, like Monroe’s—whose unveiling the world will breathlessly await forever. Casting Johannsen, like casting Gwyneth Paltrow, will elevate any movie. Only great direction can account for the consistent quality of all the other “smaller” performances.

 

The fact that anyone could enjoy this movie on the level of a simple, poignant, romantic comedy should not detract from its value as a multifaceted meditation upon the human challenges inherent in connecting with any “other”—whether in “translating” one’s self to another, or in meaningfully “translating” another’s mysterious mumblings and gestures in our own direction. Far too often, we are left feeling all alone in the world throughout most of our lives, feeling quite “lost in translation.”

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net