When We Become the Enemy

"When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." -- Friedrich Neitzsche

I will confess that the night we began the invasion of Iraq, I was driving my car. When I heard it on the radio, I began to cry, and I looked for a church where I could pray. I went to a monastery purported to be open 24 hours, but it wasn't. So finally I just pulled over to the side of the road and cried, and prayed for my country, and cried some more. I have never been so disappointed in my country in my entire life.

Many people called me unpatriotic. It is thought in this country that we must be sheep, agreeing with our leaders, "supporting our troops," in order to be a patriot. How is this possible? This is a country of dissenters, was based on dissent. Our ancestors came in protest of taxes, in search of freedom, religious and otherwise.

For some, it seems impossible to understand that, to the world, the U.S. can look evil. We can look evil, and powerful, and greedy; in fact, we can do more than just look that way. We can be that way. We still imagine ourselves as the little guy, the fighter, but what we really are is the big bully.

I've spent the last seven years worrying that the U.S. will become the new Soviet Union, the new China, the new [write name of oppressive country here]. It is so easy to forget, after all, that those countries aren't full of evil, snarling Nazi's or rampant, control-hungry Communists, but of people. They're full of people -- children, mothers, aunties and uncles, businessmen and women -- just people. And we must always tread carefully, or our "Republic" will become just as Machiavellian as any other in history.

Today I read that the interrogation methods used in Guantanamo Bay were those used by Chinese communists. They were the methods used against our own soldiers; the methods we've demonized the past 50 years and called "torture" are now called "interrogation techniques." The only difference in the training materials was the title, changed from "Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance" to "Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape." Originally a training program to get our men used to possible illegal and unethical torture practices, it became a handbook for use in Guantanamo.

So this is what we've come to: U.S., the "new" China. We buy their products, ignore their human rights offenses, and then we use their handbook to train our men and women to commit those same offenses.

I was sad the day we invaded Afghanistan. I was even sadder the day we invaded Iraq on what was clearly a ridiculous premise. Today, I am conflicted; is it possible to be more disappointed? Or should I just become numb to the loss of greatness I see in my own country, which I love?

Tough choice.

China inspired interrogations at Guantanamo
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.(Click here for full article)

Immigration -- the human cost

Ahh, only in America...

Members of one Ku Klux Klan group are staging a protest against another group for their "unchristian values."

"We are opposed to the ignorance and stupidity as displayed by the individuals that thumbed their nose at the area churches by continuing to use racial slurs, threats and avoided Christian deportment," said Ken Mier, investigator of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. They are protesting the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

I personally like my racists with good Christian values. But honestly, could this happen anywhere but America?

Members of one Klan group plan to protest another in Cullman

CULLMAN, Ala. -- Members of one Ku Klux Klan organization say they will assemble at the courthouse Nov. 10 to show their opposition to another Klan group that plans an anti-immigration rally there that day.

Ken Mier, who described himself as an investigator for the Alabama Ku Klux Klan and the national office of the Ku Klux Klan LLC, said in an e-mail to The Cullman Times that his group is against the tactics of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which held an anti-immigration protest last month in Athens.

Republicans Lose Evangelical Christianity

For a long, long time, the christian "right" has been associated with the Republican Party -- an assertion that I have long had a problem with. For one, politics and religion are separate, and more than a few patriots died so that we would not become a theocracy but a democracy. It irked me to have my church try to push politics on me; I moved from a conservative church to a liberal one, only to have the same thing done. Same deal, different candidates.

The marriage of politics to a religious group is just one more way to try to assert control. My in-laws got me the magazine "World" and I was abhorred to read that campaign finance reform was ungodly. I mean, campaign finance reform? It was just a way to convince people to vote against it, like having skinny people eat a candy bar on a commercial to show how yummy it is (oh, and it doesn't make you fat. No, really). This was nothing more than brainwash.

My worry is this: that Democrats will step in and take over the job of government morality police. Not that the Republicans ever actually did anything -- ten years in power, six with a Republican president, and they can't do anything about abortion? Prayer in schools? Flag burning? Sounds like the Republican Party was a failure for the Christian right. I could hope for a time of separation between religion and politics, but this America, and making everything political is just one of those "things that cannot be changed," after all.

You can read the entire (10 pages!) of the article here.

The backlash on the right against Bush and the war has emboldened some previously circumspect evangelical leaders to criticize the leadership of the Christian conservative political movement. “The quickness to arms, the quickness to invade, I think that caused a kind of desertion of what has been known as the Christian right,” Hybels, whose Willow Creek Association now includes 12,000 churches, told me over the summer. “People who might be called progressive evangelicals or centrist evangelicals are one stirring away from a real awakening.”

The generational and theological shifts in the evangelical world are turning the next election into a credibility test for the conservative Christian establishment. The current Republican front-runner in national polls, Rudolph W. Giuliani, could hardly be less like their kind of guy: twice divorced, thrice married, estranged from his children and church and a supporter of legalized abortion and gay rights. Alarmed at the continued strength of his candidacy, Dobson and a group of about 50 evangelical Christians leaders agreed last month to back a third party if Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee. But polls show that Giuliani is the most popular candidate among white evangelical voters. He has the support, so far, of a plurality if not a majority of conservative Christians. If Giuliani captures the nomination despite the threat of an evangelical revolt, it will be a long time before Republican strategists pay attention to the demands of conservative Christian leaders again. And if the Democrats capitalize on the current demoralization to capture a larger share of evangelical votes, the credibility damage could be just as severe.

“There was a time when evangelical churches were becoming largely and almost exclusively the Republican Party at prayer,” said Marvin Olasky, the editor of the evangelical magazine World and an informal adviser to George W. Bush when he was governor. “To some extent — we have to see how much — the Republicans have blown it. That opportunity to lock up that constituency has vanished. The ball now really is in the Democrats’ court.”

Alternatives

I am a big fan of practicality; one reason I love the Nature Conservancy is that they include humans in their conservation plans. It is common for the super-educated to look at humanity from a broad perspective and declare us "parasites." We do fit the description; we have overrun our host (the planet) and are killing it. There is even a movement to cause humanity to die out, with all members pledging to sterilize themselves and to convince others to do the same.

While I understand this reasoning, I think it is too linear. I think humanity has a place on the planet and that it is our home. We've lived here for millions of years without destroying it, and I believe that by thinking and working together we can fix the damage we've caused. Perhaps I am too optimistic, but that is my perspective.

So, I was delighted to find this plan by the New-York based Wildlife Conservation Society. Essentially, rather than punishing poachers in Zambia, they are examining why people poach endangered animals, and the answer is because they are starving and it is a quick way to get money. So, by installing a program that trains people in a skill and rewards them with good behavior along with keeping punishments for poaching, they hope to truly lower poaching incidents.

Here's hoping that it works.

A cheaper plan to stop poachers: Give them real jobs

Mfuwe, Zambia - Jimmy Mbewe spent six-and-a-half years in prison after he was caught illegally killing an elephant outside South Luangwa National Park here in eastern Zambia.

Poverty drove the father of nine to wander the bush evading wildlife scouts to shoot buffalo and elephant and sell the meat to local traders. "I'm not educated, so I chose my profession as hunting," he says.

Out of prison now, his movements are monitored by a local antipoaching team.

But Mr. Mbewe says he has no intention of going back behind bars. He's now busy learning carpentry skills with other former poachers under the Community Markets for Conservation program.

Mbewe is also learning to farm and work as a beekeeper. As long as he refrains from poaching, COMACO buys his honey at a price higher than the local market average, processes it, packages it, and sends it on to local markets.

The program goes beyond teaching former poachers new ways to earn a living; it is creating a sophisticated network of markets that makes money for locals while reducing poaching, improving land use, and supporting conservation.

"The challenge is you can't demand support for conservation if conservation is a cost," says Dale Lewis, an American conservationist who moved to Zambia 28 years ago as a college research assistant, and has spearheaded the project.

If Only I Could Vote For This Guy...

In a heated Congressional debate over expanding health insurance for America's uninsured children, a bit of truth accidentally slipped out:

Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, told Republicans: “You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.”

Nice! Of course, there was negative response from Republicans, but at least we know somebody in Congress is paying attention to the fact that innocent people - not terrorists, but innocent civilians - are dying each and every day we occupy Iraq. If only more would admit what is clearly the case here... (read the entire article here.)

Quote of the Week

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”. -Sinclair Lewis, 1885-1951