On the Road to Peace

Close Guantánamo Now!
By John Dear SJ
Created Jun 3 2008 - 05:09


[BE SURE TO CLICK ON THE DIRECT LINK SO YOU CAN VIEW THE VIDEO OF THESE BEAUTIFUL SOULS SPEAKING TRUTH TO THE POWERS AND PRINCIPALITIES...]


I was in Washington, D.C. last week for the opening day of the trial of 35 friends and peacemakers who dared to protest the indefinite detention and torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They did their best over several days to speak in court on behalf of those who never had a day in court.


Eventually, the judge dismissed the case of one defendant and found the rest guilty of misdemeanors. A dozen were sent to jail, for 1 to 15 days.

The trial stemmed from a demonstration at the Supreme Court Jan. 11, the sixth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay U.S. detention and torture facility.

On the first day of the trial, early Tuesday morning, we gathered at the Supreme Court and from there we marched a few miles to the D.C. Superior Court.

Fifty of us wore orange jump suits and black hoods and others wore military fatigues. A large banner saying "Close Guantanamo" brought up the rear.

...

Said Matthew Daloisio of the New York Catholic Worker, "I stood at the Supreme Court on behalf of Yasser Al Zahrani, a 22 year old Yemeni man, arrested at the age of 17 and never charged or tried, who on June 10, 2006, apparently took his own life."

Addressing Judge Wendell Gardner, Matt said, "In the five months since our arrest, we have made it further in the criminal justice system than these men have in over six years."

Fr. Bill Pickard from Scranton, Pa., said: "I went to the Supreme Court to bring before the law the name of Faruq Ali Ahmed -- who claims he traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 simply to teach the Koran to children and that he has no affiliation with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. He cannot do it for himself, so I am called by my faith, my respect for the rule of law, and my conscience to do it for him."

Complementing the uttering of names was silence. Nearly half the defendants elected to remain silent -- this in solidarity with the voiceless prisoners of Guantanamo.

Also rendered voiceless was a witness for the 34 defendants. The judge deemed "irrelevant" and "unnecessary" testimony from Thomas Wilner, a lawyer representing Guantanamo detainees. The judge barred him from taking the stand.

According to human rights groups, the United States holds more than 20,000 people -- some say as many as 27,000 people -- in detention centers around the world. All are held without charge or with no trial scheduled or planned. How many have been tortured we do not know. But torture, illegal detention, and cover-ups have become standard operating procedure for the new American empire.
The defendants are part of a group called "Witness Against Torture," which protests the immoral U.S. policies of torture and demands the closing of Guantanamo and all secret U.S. prisons. Frida Berrigan, the group's spokesperson, said after the verdicts, "We're sad about the convictions, but we're happy, moved and humbled to bring the stories, names and identification of the men in Guantanamo into a court of law."

Hope permeated the forlorn air. And it was because of these good people, many of them Catholic Workers and Christians. They forfeited their freedom for those without civil liberties. They used their voices on behalf of those made silent. They turned a glare of shame on our imperial courts, where lady justice is stridently touted then grossly mocked.

As we join this campaign to abolish torture and Guantanamo, we not only serve the suffering prisoners, but we reclaim our humanity. Let's press the U.S. Supreme Court and the Congress to outlaw torture, close Guantanamo, abolish all secret prisons supposedly outside the realm of law and assert decisively the right of habeas corpus.

To learn more about the trial, the defendants and the movement to shut down Guantanamo, visit http://www.witnesstorture.org/ [1].


John's forthcoming autobiography, A Persistent Peace, will be published on Aug. 1. For excerpts and details, see: www.persistentpeace.com [4]. To order, go to www.amazon.com [5]. This weekend, John will lead a retreat for Pax Christi New Mexico in Albuquerque, N.M. See: www.johndear.org [6] for details.


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Source URL:
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1868
Links:
[1] http://www.witnesstorture.org/
[2] http://nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/dear/archives.htm
[3] http://ncrcafe.org/node/27
[4] http://www.persistentpeace.com
[5] http://www.amazon.com
[6] http://www.johndear.org



http://ncrcafe.org/node/1868

A Massacre of the World's Poor

[From: http://nonviolentjesus.blogspot.com/ ]

"You're like fish that only see the bait, never the line," we would mock in return. For we believed – and quite a few of us still do - that people should not be measured by material possessions but by their ability to transform the lives of others - the poor and underprivileged; that the economy needed to be regulated and reorganised in the interests of the many, not the few, and that socialism without democracy could never work." - Tariq Ali, "Storming Heaven"

"Food riots have broken out across the globe destabilizing large parts of the developing world. China is experiencing double-digit inflation. Indonesia, Vietnam and India have imposed controls over rice exports. Wheat, corn and soy beans are at record highs and threatening to go higher still. Commodities are up across the board. The World Food Program is warning of widespread famine if the West doesn't provide emergency humanitarian relief. The situation is dire. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez summed it up like this, "It is a massacre of the world's poor. The problem is not the production of food. It is the economic, social and political model of the world. The capitalist model is in crisis." - Mike Whitney, "Food Riots and Speculators", April 26, 2008

"The philosophy of oppression, perfected and refined through civilizations as a true culture injustice, does not achieve its greatest triumph when its propagandists knowingly inculcate it; rather the triumph is achieved when this philosophy has become so deeply rooted in the spirits of the oppressors themselves nad their ideologues that they are not even aware of their guilt." - Jose Miranda, "Marx and the Bible"

The voice of Christian tradition transcends the childish evasions of the modern megachurch, "God willed that this earth should be the common possession of all and he offered its fruits to all. But avarice distributed the rights of possession." - St. Ambrose.

What are the obligations of justice? "You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his." - St. Ambrose.

God did not intend that property be an absolute right transcending all other rights and duties and the Christian faith has always protested this travesty of justice. Property rights are always relative to our obligations to the common good. Once we accept this teaching, we experience a strange and wondrous transformation. In the last few centuries, many have sought to break the bonds of religion in order to live what they consider fully human lives. Our acceptance of Biblical truth frees us from the tyranny of property and the sin that wedges itself between buying and selling in the words of Jesus ben Sirach (Ecclesiaticus 27: 1 - 2). Thus we are freed from submission to the inhuman laws of materialistic economics, the global neoliberalism which always privileges blind economic growth over the needs of humanity.

The original sin of modern economics is the commodification of man's life and labor. Its fundamental injustice is to make a human being's life equivalent to a certain quantity of commodities. The fact that this seems utterly natural testifies to the most effective propaganda mechanism which the world has ever seen.

Now at last the Earth itself is in revolt, sick from a severe case of global capitalism, which sees no injustice when millions have to starve so the property rights of three or four commodity traders won't be violated. Global warming is the divine response which shouts, "If only you would listen! You would not listen to my son, so now the deluge."

Crossing the Threshold of Hope

...."Israel's methodical actions make it clear that it is systematically grinding down and now actually starving people for whose welfare it is legally accountable simply because it regards Gaza's 1.5 million men, women and children as a surplus population it would, quite simply, like to get rid of one way or the other: a sentiment made quite clear when Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi proposed, shortly after the current crisis began, that the entire Palestinian population of Gaza should just be removed and transferred to the Egyptian desert. 'They will have a nice country, and we shall have our country and we shall live in peace,'"- "The Strangulation of Gaza", The Nation, Feb. 18, 2008.

Such a peace was well known to the Roman empire: "They made a desert and called it peace." - Tacitus.

Christians, of course, need not fear that that they will be forced to look at the starving faces which our government's unceasing support for Israel has procured. Nor will their pastors intrude any unwelcome pleas for justice, but we will all continue to enjoy the "Gospel of Prosperity" until the Rapture takes us to eternal Disneyland. How pleased God must be with us.

posted by Boyd at 12:51 PM

PLEASE check out the blog 'Nonviolent Jesus'

Food For The Poor Gift Catalogue

WHY BANKRUPTCY?

Dialogue # 11

picture: Copyright 2007 www.mmorgenstern.com

One writer asks:

What are the real reasons behind the dioceses filing for Chapter 11 protection? Is it all about money?

Father Tom Doyle and I have served as consultants and expert witnesses in civil cases of clergy abuse in all five dioceses that have so far filed for bankruptcy.

Therefore we were required to review the evidence in the abuse cases facing these dioceses involved in that process. In addition, Tom has served as an expert witness in the bankruptcy proceedings themselves having had to explain how the institutional church owns property.

No diocese states openly that it fears disclosure of scandalous or perhaps criminal behavior contained in documents that any civil trial would expose, but the circumstances provide irrefutable evidence that such is the case. The process of filing for bankruptcy stops all discovery and halts all cases of abuse from going forward.



Is there a possibility that a diocese may go broke and loose everything?

No danger, even remote, of financial disaster exists in any of the dioceses that are appealing for this civil protection. In fact, the proceedings have forced to the surface facts that reveal the dioceses have significant holdings they intentionally covered up, diverted or otherwise underestimated. Between 88 and 95 percent of all the funding for Catholic Charities across the country come from secular and government sources.

The proceedings in the diocese of San Diego are exposing the manipulation of assets and the intrigue surrounding its attempt to justify itself before a federal judge. [Check The San Diego Union Tribune April 2007 by Mark Sauer & Sandi Dolbee] Somehow they overlooked assets of 65 to 400 million dollars. The Federal Judge appointed her own auditor to get the facts straight. The diocese will have to pay for this service.

No diocese has actually declared bankruptcy. They have all filed for protection. In every instance each diocese filed for protection shortly before a civil trial or series of trials for clergy sexual abuse was to start. Every one of those cases would expose some very damning information.

CONTINUE...

See also ”God, Incorporated” in the July 2007 edition of San Diego Magazine.

Richard Sipe's website: "Priests, Celibacy and Sexuality"

Picture - Michael Morgenstern

Very Informative site. Worth bookmarking

ON THE LINE

What happens when a group of activists, priests, celebrities, and students risk arrest to protest U.S. foreign policy in Latin America?

ON THE LINE is an inside look at the people behind one of the largest nonviolent movements in America today: the movement to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC, a U.S. Army school that trains Latin American soldiers. In a world where politics, passion, and Constitutional rights collide, protesters discuss their activism, the dark side of U.S. foreign policy, and the challenges of protesting since 9/11.

The principal cast includes:

* Martin Sheen, actor
* Susan Sarandon, actor
* Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Founder of School of the Americas Watch
* John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman
* Bob Barr, political analyst and former US Congressman
* Gerry Weber, ACLU-Georgia

NonviolentJesusBlog

Go to the blog and read his posts. This is just a sample:

"When we contemplate, not the ephemeral regimes of Republican or Democratic flavor, but the powers of global dominance for which they act as marketing representatives, it is almost impossible not to succumb to a sense of futility. In fact, they have labored long and hard to instill this sense of impotence in us, the idea that there is no alternative to the everlasting dominance of savage capitalism - the end of history, indeed. But the weapons God has given us are the same as those which the early Christians used against an equally powerful empire. And he will not abandon us now either.

We begin by acting on our conscience - there is no substitute for action, but the action must be supported by the twin pillars of prayer and strategic analysis. Prayer must be sincere, but the strategic analysis must penetrate to the depth of the power relations that we face. Otherwise, we will be satisfied with small concessions while the real crimes continue...."

Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace

Mindblowing..."Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace"

Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace (Theology in Global Perspective) (Paperback)

By Mary J. Miller (Iowa and Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

"This book may take our breath away." So states the cover blurb from Walter Brueggemann on "Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace," released on April 17, 2007 by Daniel G. Groody. The basic premise is, metaphorically, that the global family has booked passage and is now aboard the ship of globalization and there is no turning back to the shore. The question we must ask ourselves, as passengers on this ship, is, "who is at the helm and where are we going?" As Gustavo Gutierrez quips, "Being against globalization is like being against electricity." We can't stop the ship, and one would question the wisdom of wanting to, but the issues of who's driving and where will we end up are legitimate.

The book begins by offering an overview of the dual nature of globalization--its inherent propensity for good, such as the triumphs of technology, and for ill, such as the tragedy of poverty. Perhaps more importantly, chapter one details where we have sailed on this ship so far. This chapter seeks to give a realistic picture of the world today and paints that picture by using the most current statistics available. These statistics were gathered from sources such as the World Bank, the United Nations annual Human Development and World Development reports, and the World Institute for Development Economic Research. It is staggering to learn that 19 percent of the global population lives on less than $1 per day, 48 percent live on less than $2 per day, 75 percent live on less than $10 per day, and, according to the World Bank, two-thirds of the population of the planet lives in poverty. The weight of these income disparities is compounded when one looks at the unequal distribution of wealth and our disordered spending patterns. According to an article in the December 2006 issue of "The Economist," half of all wealth is held by only 2 percent of the world's adults. The world spends almost as much money on toys and games as the poorest 20 percent of the population earns in a year, and four times as much on alcohol as on international development aid. The troubling area of military spending is also addressed.

The world picture, from the perspective of poverty and need is indeed bleak, but Professor Groody does not leave us in the grip of its reality with no hope. He is convinced that, while fully aware of the abuses committed in the name of religion throughout history, the gift theology can bring to the process of globalization is a navigation system that has the potential to guide us to a place of solidarity and peace, where if globalization is left to itself or to those leaders who are only motivated by profit we may run aground on the icebergs of greed. As Groody notes, we are doing theological reflection all the time, but he argues that to find a place of human solidarity we must undergo a conversion from "money-theism" to monotheism. The remaining eight chapters of the book deal with how the various sub-disciplines of theology inform the process of globalization.

* Chapter two details the core narratives of the Bible--the Narrative of the Empire, the Narrative of the Poor, the Narrative of Yahweh, the Narrative of Idolatry, and the Narrative of the Gospel, integrating them all with the Narrative of the Passover.
* Chapter three challenges idolatry and excessive wealth through the words of the early church writers.
* Chapter four lays out an overview of Catholic social teaching with an acronym ("A God of Life") that provides a framework on which to hang the basic tenets. There are also several very useful charts that detail the documents of the universal and regional churches by categories of year, author, context, and key concept.
* Chapter five consists of a short section (five or six pages) on the basic social teachings of each of the major, non-Judeo-Christian, world religions--Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Bahai Faith, and African Indigenous religions. Here we see that social justice is not unique to Christianity.
* In chapter six the lives of five contemporary models of justice are briefly chronicled: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, and Oscar Romero. Attention is paid especially to their foundational experiences, the major metaphor of their life, their operative theology, and their core contribution to justice.
* Chapter seven reflects on God through the perspective of the poor by looking at liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor. This chapter is an especially helpful read for anyone who wishes to understand what is meant by these two terms and the position of the Vatican on liberation theology. The global perspective is readily apparent again in this chapter as attention is paid to Black, Hispanic, Feminist, and Asian liberation theology.
* Chapter eight concerns the rite of the liturgy, and justice as living in right relationships with God, self, others, and the environment. This chapter also has several nice charts that are helpful in linking the sacraments to social teaching by way core issue.
* The final chapter on spirituality and transformation beautifully sums up the book by looking to the spiritual disciplines which can strengthen us for doing the work of justice in the world: fasting, prayer, community, solidarity, nature, simplicity, recollection, and Sabbath.

Each chapter begins with a relevant story, and ends with a set of questions that would be helpful for personal reflection, group discussion, or classroom use, and a detailed bibliography for further reading and study.

I recommend Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice for upper level undergrads and graduate students in theology, peace studies, political science, ethics and justice, and economics and business, as well as justice groups, and the general reader interested in this vital and timely topic. Groody has managed to research and write a compelling treatise on global injustice without conveying a bleak and hopeless message. At its core, this book seeks to respond to the deeper issues of the human heart that globalization has largely left unexplored--questions related to belonging and loneliness, good and evil, peace and division, healing and suffering, meaning and meaninglessness, hope and despair, love and apathy, justice and injustice, freedom and slavery, and ultimately life and death. He is not interested in overwhelming readers with guilt, but rather with guiding readers to examine our personal and corporate lives and motivations, all the while encouraging us to think beyond ourselves to the needs of our brothers and sisters in the global family. The book is clear and well documented, exquisitely written, and sings a wonderful melody of the gratuitousness of God that is both a gift to and a demand on our lives.

67/68. Who was this guy called Pierre Teilhard de Chardin? Why is he Famous in the Scientific Community?

From Are Jesuits Catholic?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a visionary French Jesuit, paleontologist, biologist, and philosopher, who spent the bulk of his life trying to integrate religious experience with natural science, most specifically Christian theology with theories of evolution. In this endeavor he became absolutely enthralled with the possibilities for humankind, which he saw as heading for an exciting convergence of systems, an "Omega point" where the coalescence of consciousness will lead us to a new state of peace and planetary unity. Long before ecology was fashionable, he saw this unity he saw as being based intrinsically upon the spirit of the Earth:

"The Age of Nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the Earth." Teilhard de Chardin passed away a full ten years before James Lovelock ever proposed the "Gaia Hypothesis" which suggests that the Earth is actually a living being, a collosal biological super-system. Yet Chardin's writings clearly reflect the sense of the Earth as having its own autonomous personality, and being the prime center and director of our future -- a strange attractor, if you will -- that will be the guiding force for the synthesis of humankind.

"The phrase 'Sense of the Earth' should be understood to mean the passionate concern for our common destiny which draws the thinking part of life ever further onward. The only truly natural and real human unity is the spirit of the Earth. . . .The sense of Earth is the irresistable pressure which will come at the right moment to unite them (humankind) in a common passion.

"We have reached a crossroads in human evolution where the only road which leads forward is towards a common passion. . . To continue to place our hopes in a social order achieved by external violence would simply amount to our giving up all hope of carrying the Spirit of the Earth to its limits."

To this end, he suggested that the Earth in its evolutionary unfolding, was growing a new organ of consciousness, called the noosphere. The noosphere is analogous on a planetary level to the evolution of the cerebral cortex in humans. The noosphere is a "planetary thinking network" -- an interlinked system of consciousness and information, a global net of self-awareness, instantaneous feedback, and planetary communication. At the time of his writing, computers of any merit were the size of a city block, and the Internet was, if anything, an element of speculative science fiction. Yet this evolution is indeed coming to pass, and with a rapidity, that in Gaia time, is but a mere passage of seconds. In these precious moments, the planet is developing her cerebral cortex, and emerging into self-conscious awakening. We are indeed approaching the Omega point that Teilhard de Chardin was so excited about.

This convergence however, though it was predicted to occur through a global information network, was not a convergence of merely minds or bodies -- but of heart, a point that he made most fervently.

"It is not our heads or our bodies which we must bring together, but our hearts. . . . Humanity. . . is building its composite brain beneath our eyes. May it not be that tomorrow, through the logical and biological deepening of the movement drawing it together, it will find its heart, without which the ultimate wholeness of its power of unification can never be achieved?"

In his productive lifetime, Teilhard de Chardin wrote many books, which include the following: LET ME EXPLAIN
THE APPEARANCE OF MAN
THE DIVINE MILIEU
THE FUTURE OF MAN
HOW I BELIEVE
HYMN OF THE UNIVERSE
LETTERS FROM A TRAVELLER
LETTERS TO LEONTINE ZANTA
THE MAKING OF A MIND
MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
SCIENCE AND CHRIST
THE VISION OF THE PAST
WRITINGS IN TIME OF WAR
BUILDING THE EARTH
Most of these quotes were taken from Building the Earth, and The Phenomenon of Man, but as I no longer have a copy, but only old notes, I can't quote exact page numbers.

by Anodea Judith, Dec. 96.

from: http://www.gaiamind.com/Teilhard.html
more on Teilhard de Chardin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin

posted by sonoftheprodigal at 8:43 PM 3 comments

American Workers being Overworked

H/T VoxNova:


And then we wonder why there are so many divorces and broken families…

From CNN:

• The American worker has the least vacation time of any modern, developed society.
• In 2005, 33 percent of workers said they would be checking in with the office while on vacation.
• One-half of workers reported they feel a great deal of stress on the job.
• Forty-four percent of working moms admit to being preoccupied about work while at home and one-fourth say they bring home projects at least one day a week.
• Nineteen percent of working moms reported they often or always work weekends.
• Thirty-seven percent of all working dads said they would consider the option of taking a new job with less pay if it offered a better work/life balance.
• Thirty-six percent of working dads reported they bring work home at least one day a week and 30 percent say they often or always work weekends.

The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth - Book Review

Just picked this book up...

Law School Fraud - Despite What The Glossy Brochures May Say, It Is Actually Tough Out There For Most Law Grads.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

For most law school graduates huge salaries are a long shot. Most law grads face low pay, high debt, and substandard working conditions. Unfortunately, law schools hide this fact because US News & World Report which tracks employment information, may be prompting schools to create an artificially bright employment picture.http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1183712786622
Posted by helpme123 at 1:28 PM

24 comments:

Profile of a Gypsy Cop

Texas 'justice'...

The Hedge Fund Class and the French Revolution

HatTip to Godspy

“Is it right or even admissible in the human conscience that while teachers, emergency room technicians, police and firefighters are taxed at full earned-income rates — and often underpaid — that the highest-earning people in this country should pay at either very low tax rates or none at all? …[O]ne of the causes of the French Revolution was the sad truth that the aristocracy was not taxed at all, while the workers and burghers were taxed highly. Is this our future? Let’s keep it real: Congress can take notice of a mammoth inequity in taxation during wartime and make the tax on private equity and hedge funds approximate the treatment of other highly paid people — or it can continue down the road to the Bastille.” [NY Times]

Threat of Martial Law in The United States is Real

Interesting online radio station:

Provoke believes the desire for social justice has long been a central theme of all the world religions. With that in mind, each show highlights those individuals and organizations who work tirelessly on behalf of the poor and marginalized, peace and justice - and in so doing, make a difference in the world. HERE

2 more great posts from 'NonviolentJesus' blog:

Sunday, July 01, 2007

A Cry Before the Dark Face of God.

"We’d be cruising down the road in a convoy and all of the sudden, an IED blows up," said Spc. Ben Schrader, 27, of Ft. Collins, Colo. 'You’ve got these scared kids on these guns, and they just start opening fire. And there could be innocent people everywhere. And I’ve seen this, I mean, on numerous occasions, where innocent people died because we’re cruising down and a bomb goes off.'

Worse yet were home raids, or 'cordon and search' operations. Twenty-four vets who participated in the raids described them as a relentless reality of the occupation. Generally on little evidence, Iraqis were rousted in the night, their homes turned upside down, the family patriarchs humiliated and sometimes arrested.

Staff Sgt. Timothy Westphal, 31, of Denver, said that he’ll never forget one on a hot summer night in 2004. He and more than 40 other soldiers raided a farm near Tikrit and, pointing their rifles and lights at a group of sleepers, woke them up.

'The man screamed this gut-wrenching, blood-curdling, just horrified scream,' Westphal recalled. 'I’ve never heard anything like that.'

It turned out the people weren’t insurgents but a family sleeping outside to escape the heat."

We all cry before the dark face of God when the mystery of human violence makes us shiver with rage. The dark cry rising from the violated man is the cry that every Christian who loves God should raise at the sight of the inner and outward violations we make on our fellow images of God. We must become as passionate as God about the mutilation of justice.

"The antipathy toward Iraqis was confirmed in a survey released in May by the Pentagon. Just 47% of soldiers and 38% of Marines agreed that civilians should be treated with dignity and respect. Only 55% of soldiers and 40% of Marines said they would report a unit member who had killed or injured 'an innocent noncombatant.'"

O how our empty hearts howl in the wilderness! They are empty of the love that God has poured into us.

This Sunday we were presented with the careful details of what the good Samaritan did. Have you noticed how thoughtful the Samaritan was? Instead of self-congratulation, there was concentration on the details of how the beaten man was to be nurtured, renewed and brought back to health. Right now in Iraq, children wounded by American contempt for life, for God, and for their inner integrity, are lying by the side of the road with hands reaching out for our care. Will we do the careful tasks that need to be done to end this suffering?

It is not sufficient to give charity, but deeper questions must be asked if we are to be true Samaritans. From a recent article in the Nation: "The Iraq War is a vast and complicated enterprise. In this investigation of alleged military misconduct, The Nation focused on a few key elements of the occupation, asking veterans to explain in detail their experiences operating patrols and supply convoys, setting up checkpoints, conducting raids and arresting suspects. From these collected snapshots a common theme emerged. Fighting in densely populated urban areas has led to the indiscriminate use of force and the deaths at the hands of occupation troops of thousands of innocents."

In other words, the conditions of the war have led to the indiscriminate mass killing of innocent civilians. A culture of contempt for the life created by God for love has been ingrained in the soldiers in Iraq. Most believe that this is due to accidental conditions or incompetence by the war's leaders. In fact, this contempt is part of standard military indoctrination and will not be healed until the stain of war is wiped from our civilization.

"'The frustration that resulted from our inability to get back at those who were attacking us led to tactics that seemed designed simply to punish the local population that was supporting them,' Sergeant Mejía said."

Over the next few posts, we will be examining the soldier's stories in detail to reveal the spiritual face that emerges. In the course of this investigation, we may also see glimpses of our own face in the mirror of this contempt, a contempt we participate in when we refuse to be Samaritans to the Iraqi people that our membership in a nation deluded by fear has called us to be.

"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will." - Frederick Douglass

Hope is Thick in the Air.

"The mighty are only mighty because we are on our knees. Let us rise!" - Camille Desmoulins

"Army Spc. Eleonai 'Eli' Israel was stationed at Camp Victory in Baghdad when he told his commanding officers June 19 that he would no longer participate in the illegal and unjust U.S. war on Iraq. 'We are now violating the people of this country in ways that we would never accept on our own soil,' said Eli.

Support Eli by going to http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/ and making a donation. Make hope fold a little thicker around us by defying the mighty on their thrones, as Mary did when she proclaimed the greatness of the Lord. Let the voice of John of Damascene rise with the voices of those who have put an end to killing in their hearts.

In the words of Kenneth Rexroth, "There was a similar movement amongst the Humanists of the early sixteenth century, contemporary with the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. They attempted to develop a social philosophy based on the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, Clement of Alexandria, John of Damascus and similar thinkers. Its basic concept was the establishment of a community of love encompassing all of society and having as its final end the divinization of the world. These words are John Damascene's. They are also Teilhard de Chardin's. They are also Karl Rahner's. They are also St. Thomas More's." This movement continues into our day through the voice of liberation theology, the voice of the poor rising into the conscience of the Church. Make a pledge to carry out an act of resistance each day to the glory of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.