Death is a Prophylactic

I was asked to verify that Billy Graham ever said what I said he said. I guess I have to say he didn't "say" it.

It's tough if you don't accept that he was a man, but here 'tis.

So the reveal?

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. "Spiritualizing" My Lai. Waving our palm fronds.

Isn't it all of the same stuff?

Doesn't it depend on our creating a self-serving, self-justifying, affirming sense of God- a sense of God that is then for us in a self-serving, self-justifying, affirming way?

I guess we could say it's all in the past and now we know better. I guess we do say that, and do so without thinking that makes us the crowd that rejects Jesus.

Convenient.

...

Here's where it gets maudlin...

Could you stand with King while he was still alive? If you're a White Christian, history says you probably couldn't.*
What would you do or say about My Lai if now was 37 years ago? Say, "Thanks, Billy"?
Where would you be in the last week of Jesus' life: with the crowds, his disciples, the religious leaders? The Gospels don't really give any of us a happy out with those choices.

So where do you stand now?

Are you convinced that your god has saved you from this story?

I'd say y/our submission to y/our god still crucifies love today. But "The cry of revolt against such a god is nearer the truth than is the sophistry with which men attempt to justify him."** [sic all the way around]

If Only I Were Listening to Rattle and Hum
Doolittle- Pixies

* Ouch, did I have to say it like that?
** Some so and so's thoughts on what the Letter to the Romans could mean.

It's All of The Same...

Back in the day when I taught Neo-Fascism (high school economics)-

Oh that's right I was a high school social-sciences teacher. You didn't know that? Oh well, I was. Isn't that something? Good times.-

So, back then, it was a challenge to get the private Christian high schoolers to see the meaninglessness of the label "liberal" as far as our economics or politics was concerned. One of the things we did to that end was investigate how WorldCom collapsed. Remember that? WorldCom. It was a current event at the time and though it happened on W's watch, it was easy to pin on Clinton, so the little right-wingers could get into it and it taught an important lesson.

Anyway, we looked at WorldCom's apparent growth and collapse, and one of the things that was plain as anything to them, was the state made the legal arrangements that made conflicting interests no longer conflict. They understood that commercial and investment banks merging benefited "someone" and with my heavy-handed browbeating they learned that someone was the Wall St. bankers who gave money to the lawmakers who made the legal arrangements that made these new banks possible. These new banks could buy the stocks of companies like WorldCom as an investment bank with money from their commercial bank side and then inflate its value and use this inflated value to buy other "telephone" companies inflating the value even more and then do this over and over again with the new bank handling each deal and collecting fees for doing so. This could go on and on and on forever. It was a win-win. Until it wasn't. Except for those for whom it still was.

The kids could see that this was no accident or flaw in the machine but a design of the machine. In fact, I got some of these kids into hating the repeal of Glass-Steagal before hating the repeal of Glass-Steagal was cool (if only because young people love to hate people who get to take advantage of unfair situations even if they don't hate unfairness itself). None of us saw this coming- the great fake money collapse of the 21st century- but we could see that where and how the cogs of the legal machine were set, they were set in such a way as to benefit those who set them.

Duh.

But even back then it was about fake value, fake money. But that fake money represented the possibilities of real power to those that made and benefited from the legal arrangements that made the fake real.

This wasn't about liberal or conservative.* Those labels only mean something to class collaborators and fat cats. (Okay take it easy, Karl) This was about wealth and the way it manifests itself- making politicians rebel and keep the company of thieves, and all that. It reveals a little bit of what's hidden behind a veil of legitimacy.

Anywho... If any of that was a candle, this is a flood light. I know, I know, he uses bad words and doesn't show proper deference to religion. What are you gonna do?

Here, at least read this:

"People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations."

This is prophetic work for our dispensation- for good, bad, or other.

* Though I might add it was about big government. The lack of government oversight made the bad worse, both in terms of the lack of governmental oversight or concerted citizen power acting as a check on the dismantling of existing banking regulations and the creation of new ones that made the financial arrangements that led our present crisis- but they are kind of the same thing, aren't they?

So in this case, it would make sense to do what your gut might tell you: blame Clinton
Idioteque- Radiohead
Anywhere's Better Than Here- The Replacements
What's Behind the Mask- The Cramps
The National Anthem- Radiohead
Baba O'Reilly- The Who
I Ain't Got no Home- Bruce Springstein
Soul of A Man- Beck
Summertime Rolls- Jane's Addiciton
Don't Talk- The Beach Boys

If We'd Only Recognize The Things That Make for Peace

I think I've seen enough of me and others to know that we often harp loudest about that with which we struggle most. I mean I was raised in a pretty aggressive and violent environment. I was in a lot of fights and often didn't think twice about hurting others. In many ways, violence was the primary language and often a ready solution throughout my upbringing. So I understand that what I see as a spiritual commitment to nonviolence can be attributed to some reactionary motive. Fine, it may be I'm a big peace baby because I'm struggling to overcome my own violent tendencies.

So it's no surprise to me when someone who makes gross efforts to monitor and control the sexual behaviors of others that they are finally outed as doing things that make all their preaching a punchline.

And so I wonder, is that what's going on with THE GAY? I mean think of all the teachings, all the dos and do not dos, all the commands, and moral assumptions that could make up Christian sexual ethics but don't. Think of every potential resource in the Bible and the broad field of possibility in what we call Church History that is left alone because we say it has no bearing on us. Think of all that is passed over, ignored, rationalized and explained away in one way or another. And THE GAY, a concept I don't see in the texts that make up the Bible, remains. What's going on here?

I'm reluctant to universally apply my experience (or reduce to Freudian silliness what I see as a deep commitment), but is this of the same reactive substance as my nonviolence? Are you building walls to keep yourself safe?

I remember reading Robert Gagnon's The Bible and Homosexual Practice and uncharitably saying to myself, "Good Lord, this guy is a closet case." I can charitably say the book's imprecision, imbalance, and, general dependence on what we now call truthiness seem the result of some kind of blinding rage or panic. It's horribly clear that he has decided that homoeroticism and what we broadly call homosexuality is "inherently" awful (whatever inherently does to qualify awful) and so grasps at anything that may fit the bill. But are incest, rape, anal penetration, "uncovering nakedness", consensual intercourse, etc... homosexual practices? Are they homosexual practices any more than they are heterosexual practices? Does either phrase mean anything outside of a sense of the phrase as dehumanizing euphemism?

Really. Help me out here. I guess I'm a Kinseyan 0 so don't find the protection all that necessary. But others of you? Is same-sex attraction more prevalent among men than I can realize? Did I miss out on some haunting but seminal rites of male passage by not joining a fraternity, and now you all are making up for it? Do the belittling jokes and comments about women suggest you prefer the company of men in a deeper way than I first thought? (And I focus on men here because "man" is the status that has currency for these negotiations.)

Or is there something else? Is this confusion and frustration evidence of a larger confusion- a confusion about who and what we might be for? Does y/our need to read Leviticus 18.22 (for example) as having anything to do with homosexuality demonstrate y/our loyalty to an illegitimate power?

You've probably read my allusions to the idea that something like "enhanced interrogation" can only make sense if you're willing to accept and be determined by certain things- things that make a claim on you, things that hold you, things that blind you. That "thing" makes us slaves. Sometimes happy house slaves, but we are slaves nonetheless, and we take whatever mark or brand is necessary to get along and do business with that master. How does homosexuality make sense to us? How does heterosexuality? What has us bound for that to work?

Drag. If only there was something that freed us...

Oh hey! Wait a minute.

Look, your king comes riding on a donkey. Triumphant, but humble on a donkey...

Oh wait no...

I guess that doesn't have anything to do with this.

Thanks, Billy.

I Say Collateral Damage, You Say Terrorism, I Say War Hero, You Say War Criminal...

"Washington -- The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of Al Qaeda captives 'constituted torture,' according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document."

LA Times

-This again? This doesn't matter any more, it's done with.

-No, no, no. You don't understand, they're only war crimes when bad guys do them.

-Right. And we're the good guys, so what we do is good, even if it is regrettably gruesome.

-Besides, we couldn't be who we are if we didn't do this.


All things considered, I wouldn't think beating a dead horse would be a problem for us, but perhaps there is little left to say about it.

Perhaps, from now on, when it comes up, all I will ask is this:
What kind of god do we serve if this is not necessarily confessed and confronted in our churches?

Now...?

I just can't stay away.

I tried. Oh how I tried, but nothing could fill the void. Religion, family, booze? Nothing could fill the blog-shaped hole in my heart...

So here my netlog waited. Reliable. Unwavering. Good and faithful little diary. Of course I couldn't leave you forever.

And you, dear, little lambs. Was I gone too long? Had I left you wondering if there was something you had done to keep me away? You might've, but I'm so gracious I won't bring it up now. Let's just savor the sweetness of this reunion and get to what matters, no?

And what matters? You do.

I have something for you. Well, maybe not all of you- those of you for whom my harping about nonsense like torture and war seemed like... harping- I want to share something that will wipe the scales from your eyes.

For some of you it may now seem natural to oppose the occupation of Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan. CIA kidnappings are newly awful to you. Torture is suddenly torture. It is no longer un-American to challenge and question US policy.

Good?

Maybe your conversion is a bit like showing up at AA meetings to get dates*, but who knows where the wind may blow?

For others though, some vestigial principle stands in the way. After securing your salvation with secret prisons all over the globe, torture, and the sacrificial murders of Afghan taxi drivers you're too committed to your dhimmitude. Perhaps, you've surrendered so much of your soul to make sense of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation", "extraordinary rendition", and "detainee", you're unsure how to proceed in a world where those are nonsense.

I am here for you. Actually, this is here for you:

"The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes."

In case you missed it "the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality". That means sticking things in people's butts.

No I know you're one not likely to make sharp distinctions about homosexual practices. In fact, you're probably someone for whom the phrase "homosexual practices" means something and as such distinctions aren't a part of the calculus. The upshot is this probably counts as gay.

There you go. You can augment your commitment to torture with the fear of the love that dare not speak its name. Never mind that it's not love- it's probably gay enough for you.

Now, with news that the Obama administration is maintaining Bush administration practices and that Binyam Mohammed was tortured in Guantanamo as recently as a month ago you can shake the dust from your outrage (out of practice outrage is still outrage, little lamb) and put it to use.

Apply sexual assault and violence and I'm sure whatever truth or sense of decency has been hindering you will magically melt away.

You're welcome.

* See? I could have written "laid". I am so kind to your delicate sensibilities.

Nations Sign Cluster Bomb Treaty

Well, some nations anyway.

"The first of more than 100 countries have begun signing a treaty to ban current designs of cluster bombs, at a conference in Oslo, Norway.

Campaigners are hailing the treaty as a major breakthrough.

But some of the biggest stockpilers, including the US, Russia and China, are not among the signatories. "

BBC News

This isn't the kind of thing that affects you negatively, is it? I mean, you're not likely to come across a bomblet so you can easily avoid injury. You could probably go your whole life without meeting anyone effected by a bomblet so you'll never have the awkward experience of trying not to stare at some kids stumpy legs or arms.

Besides, we couldn't be who we are without using cluster bombs, could we? And we like us don't we? You at least like you, right?

Yeah.

I thought I was upset by this. I almost called the Capitol Switchboard at (202)224-3121 to do some ranting, but no... I think we'll be okay here.

A Whole Lot of Funny In One Quote

One white supremacist leader, describing himself as moderate, professes alarm.

"There is a tremendous backlash" to Obama's election, said Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement in Learned, Miss. "My focus is to try to keep it peaceful. But many people look at the flag of the Republic of New Africa that will be hoisted over the White House as an act of war."

LA Times

Learned, Mississippi.

Naturally.

They Can Have My Gold When They Pull It From My Cold Dead Teeth

I've noticed the reemergence of a golden thread running through the various paranoid media outlets I visit. (I hate myself.) If you're a certain type of paranoid, now is the time to invest in gold.

Well... I suppose you don't have to be paranoid to turn to gold to offset currency instability, but I'm sure this ad is meant to appeal to a specific someone:

Someone not necessarily concerned with inflation or currency exchange. Someone that still has foodstuffs left in their Y2K stockpile. Someone who generally feels haunted by some vague fear but who is also much more terrified now than they were of even Y2K.

I've said before that we have experienced a kind of apocalypse, and now we see it is a zombie apocalypse- Obama seems to be raising the Clinton dead for his administration. So sure, I can see why you'd be afraid. But gold?

I've never understood why gold is so valuable generally, but it seems especially worthless if things are about to go horribly wrong.

Like so much of contemporary Conservatism, I think hyping gold is a move to squeeze a little more blood from REAL AMERICANS (thick-skulled rubes) who are only too happy to dig their own graves if they think it means they're taking the next guy's plot. (I should think of a more artful way to construct that image- it seems like a good one.) The fear on which selling gold depends seems not only a scam but also a misdirection. When there's a run on gasoline and bullets... and football pads, S&M gear, mohawks, dune buggies, and Tina Turner anthems- then we'll know it's all over. But by then it'll be too late, and who's going to want your shiny yellow rocks then?

What Was The Phrase I Like Girls Used- "'Something' Kill"?

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

The above is from a speech Martin Luther King, Jr. gave at a church a year before his murder. You probably don't know it. Saying stuff like this makes you less cuddly and gets you killed.

So there's a rash of MLK-Obama merchandise hitting the streets and following that is a move by the King estate to make sure they get paid. I suppose that seems right. I suppose it also seems right to tie the two men together. Actually, it must seem right because folks all over the place were using some sort of "content of character" "color of skin" "dream this or that" construction to color the historic significance of Obama's election.

Sure, I am all farklempt by Obama's election. I think it marks the possible end of one world and the dawn of another. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but try to imagine this happening a generation ago. There is something significantly different about America simply because of the color of our president elect's skin. But at the same time, Obama's not magic simply because of the color of his skin. To be more pointed, he did not/will not, as the convention goes, come along to magically make "white people" better for the sake of their narrative. White people still largely went for the erratic, intemperate, injudicious McCain over Obama. Was it because McCain was white? Maybe. Was it because Obama was black? I want to say "yes". But that's only slightly here or there.

The symbolic significance of Obama's victory is not in the magical transformation of racist folks to not racist folks but it is in the transformation it portends for the face of a nation. Nationally, white people voted more often for McCain. I am not saying every white person that voted for McCain was a racist (not any more than the average American anyway). I am saying, the majority of white people did not vote for the brown guy. The election of a person with dark skin to the White House does not indicate the end of racism (duh), so let's not be too back patty about what Obama's election means in that regard. But there is a transformation worth mentioning: the old, rural, white people that voted for McCain are dying and the browns are participating in greater numbers. Simply stated, the group among whom Obama did the worst is not long for this world. That, along with the conceptual shift does signify a change worth noticing. Still, white folks voted for the white guy, brown folks voted for the brown guy- not really a "dream fulfilled" moment. But, there was a brown guy for brown folks to vote for, so...

But to the Martin Luther King, Jr. point. Again, though there were obviously plenty of people who could look past skin color to some type of content, it's hard to describe this as a dream fulfilled. I recognize that it is something new and in a world of "at leasts" it is something good. But that seems a bit secondary and we ought to be careful about how much MLK dust we apply in this case.

It was not King's goal to get a dark-skinned person elected president. While that occurrence could mean something to and for what we might call the soul of our nation, King's call was to the revolutionary power of the Gospel, not the attrition of racists.

Well Sure, Why Didn't You Ask Earlier?

"Pakistan's government summoned the U.S. ambassador today to urge an immediate halt to missile strikes on suspected militant hide-outs near the Afghan border."

LA Times

Are the kind of people that feel it's okay to go around blowing up other people the kind of people you can ask to not blow up other people?

Only I Like Girls May Watch This

Impenetrability! That's What I Say

“I would think of him as I would of another of mixed race,” said Glenn Reynolds, 74, a retired textile worker in Martinsville, Va., and a former supervisor at a Goodyear plant. “God taught the children of Israel not to intermarry. You should be proud of what you are, and not intermarry.”

Mr. Reynolds, standing outside a Kroger grocery store, described Mr. Obama as a “real charismatic person, in that he’s the type of person you can’t really hate, but you don’t really trust.”

NY Times

This is just how THE LIBERAL MEDIA work... works? That's a tough one. Media is plural, but I think when it's used in that ideological sense it should become singular. Right. Like Jews as actual people is a plural, but THE JEWS would be a single mass, so singular...

Anyway. This is how it is done. You go to some Wal-Mart parking lot in Mobile, Alabama and let people talk about their insane racial prejudices just so you can make it look like people in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Mobile, Alabama have insane racial prejudices.

THE LIBERAL MEDIA. Hmph.

This is just like their making a big deal about the McPalin supporters who yell out "Kill him!" and "Terrorist*", or carry an Obama monkey at campaign rallies but no mention is made of how people call the president a war criminal.

Sure, the president did actually authorize war crimes, but hey, that's his right as MY PRESIDENT.

And I'd bet there are a number of Obama supporters who would yell out nasty things at an Obama rally- I've heard "boos" in fact.

I'd even bet, if asked "Do you think someone who bombs civilians could be considered a terrorist?" Obama supporters might say "Yes." There. See? They'd call John McCain a terrorist.

Are you hearing about that? No. Oh, but some random people in Alabama say Obama's another breed of human, or “He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch,” and it's front page news. Well, not literally front page. But it's news.

And we keep hearing about how Palin keeps saying Obama pals around with terrorists and that he's too different to be the president of REAL AMERICA, and McCain keeps suggesting Obama is too mysterious, too unknown and it's all portrayed as racist nationalism and jingoism just because people are receiving it as racist nationalism and jingoism.

Where's the balance?

* I actually have a hard time getting upset about that one. It reminds me so much of GOB it makes me laugh.

We Could Just Leave

"With time running out for the conclusion of an agreement governing American forces in Iraq, nervous negotiators have begun examining alternatives that would allow U.S. troops to stay beyond the Dec. 31 deadline, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials."

Washington Post

So do we say nothing, apply no pressure, because this has no impact on our 401(K)s? Except that it does. Do we remain silent on this because there are people in love that want to marry against your wishes and you have to devote energy to that? Overall, you're not sure what to say or do because this somehow makes you free?

A house guest that acted like us would clearly be seen as the boorish ass they were. You don't want to be a boorish ass.

See, The System Works

For the first time, a federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, ordering 17 Chinese Muslims to be brought to his courtroom on Friday.

LA Times

Take that, hippies.

Six years later, four years after being cleared of any wrong-doing, these 17 prisoners have been ordered released. Of course they haven't been released yet, and if the DOJ has its way, they won't be, but that misses the point- the The System works.
They have been ordered freed. We can breathe a collective sigh of relief and go about our business, get things back to normal, as if nothing ever happened because they are free.

The Only Thing We Have Is Fear Itself

Do y'all 'member that study by the high falutin' Rand Corporation that was publicized a bit ago explaining to us how some 600 plus terr'ist groups they studied were not overcome through military action? They said 'twere like using an axe to kill fleas on your hound dog; the fleas get away and your hound dog either bites you or dies.

(I'm trying to be folksy here, people, I've learned it's the only thing people listen to).

I can't think of anything my mama used to say about this so I guess I'll give up small towny talk.

The gist of the report was that terrorism was best addressed as a criminal or political activity. That is, it took the same kind of investigation and prosecution one uses on criminal activities to stop it or that violent groups eventually burned out and were absorbed in to political processes when allowed. We must love us some war quite a bit to give up the possibility of a Law & Order: Freedom Lovers Unit or CSI: Kabul to go for a Global War On Terror the way we do. I think the theme for CSI: Kabul would be I Can't Explain.

They also added that it was stupid to call "it" a "war" on terror because it legitimizes (and I guess valorizes) people and groups that use terrorism as a method and frames the matter in such a way that we are encouraged to misapply our resources- like failing to kill fleas with an ax and so assuming one ought to buy a bigger ax. Clearly, a more reasonable policy would be more oriented about warrants, investigations, and trials than territory occupied and body counts.

But reasonable shmeasonable, am I right? And obviously, by shmeasonable I mean, "fails to account for the meaning and identity we find in the idea of war". Forget about the insidious fascism and war profiteering for a moment; that's just gravy. What we really love about it and get from it is this horrible infantilism where we simultaneously live in fear and project the idea of strength. It allows us to surrender any sense of accountability, see everything as a threat, and submit to a rigid paternalism that can do no wrong in a "my dad can beat up your dad, especially when he's drunk, so I love it when he's drunk" kind of ethos. It's an infantilism that precludes everything but the most oblique criticism. These colors don't run, freedom isn't free, never forget, united we stand are not merely slogans- they are firm stakes laying out our impenetrable but fragile boundaries. Threatened by even their own emptiness they require the most rigid foundation. That just feeds the fascism and profiteering- bonus for The Man.

This isn't partisan. Of course Republicans own Iraq and seem especially adept at mongering fear, but Afghanistan seems to be the country where Democrats want to prove they can pee standing up, too. It's what we're asking for. We're dumb. We want to see who can yell, "I smash good" most loudly.

Fitting I suppose, lately I can't seem to say more than, "Ugh."

I'm Busy Remembering Today
Your Redneck Past- Ben Folds Five
Suzie- Boy Kill Boy
Manic Depression- Jimi Hendrix
Stairway to Heaven- Led Zeppelin
Broken Face- Pixies
Nic Fit- Sonic Youth

Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran Hooray

So Obama is hardly the pacifist I would like as a president (in my humanity I know that is not possible, but in my hopefulness, well I hope) and on that mark may only be better than John McCain because he doesn't incessantly joke about killing people. Seriously, Barack, I know you read this, escalation in Afghanistan and occupation are not the answer, but thank you for not constantly making light of the deaths of others.

Anyway we already know my thoughts on the war hero trope/tripe and tonight's speech sold more of the same but what really got me was the crowd's reaction when John McCain said he was a warrior who hated war so knew what to do to keep the peace.

That was an applause line, folks.

Granted, it wasn't a crickets chirping moment, but they cheered more for lower taxes.

That was troubling. The 13 year old curators of the YouTube haven't put that bit up yet- so if you missed it, you missed a lot.

This is a segue.

Soon after the CA Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to prevent same sex couples from marrying, our Yearly Meeting/Annual Conference/Equipping Center sent out reminders of what our Faith and Practice said about marriage and teh Gay. The reminders also included some "resources" one could consult on the legal and pastoral issues. I asked if these resources reflected our interpretation of Faith and Practice. Of course the response was that they were simply resources while F&P remained F&P. When I asked why we did not include a broader scope of resources or let F&P speak for itself... well there was no answer to that.

I would wager there are not many same sex couples sitting in our YM simply waiting for the state go ahead to get married. There are a few gay people that lurk about the periphery of our congregations, but hardly in numbers that would seem to warrant a Yearly Meeting-wide memo. Strange... no not strange... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh it'll come to me soon, but let's say strange for now. Strange that we would need to provide resources and reminders for an issue that really isn't a concern of ours. I mean it doesn't require that we address who we are, how we sin, where we struggle in any significant way to say "Gay, Boooooo!".

Memos about divorce, okay. Reminders about honest economics, sure, that makes sense. Advice about the need and how to forgive, I could see that as mattering to us. But harping on teh Gay is about as meaningful as taking a position on handicraft workers operating without the authority of the guild.

Similarly, when Congress authorized the use of force against Iraq, there were no Yearly Meeting announcements. When we actually started dropping bombs, we had nothing to say. It was that way for recent other "conflicts" as well. It's been that way.

Strange... No. Dangit, what's the word I'm thinking of?

That crowd and the lukewarm applause at the idea of "Not War" disturbed me. We are, thank God, not that crowd so I am not making the case that is exactly how we would respond (I am so praying we would not respond that way). But it did show how easy it is for death-mongering to be a default position; the idea of Not War is foreign and confusing. You don't applaud the idea of Not War. But that's the world, isn't it? It takes something transcendent, something divinely other to convince us that it need not be the case, to convince us, as the gentlemen said to McCain (and Obama should remember) "You can't win an occupation". I'd add, no one wins wars. But to the previous, add our reluctance to be confronted with actual sin (that which we actually do to participate in and legitimize death, injustice, and destruction) and you've got quite a recipe for, well, death, injustice, and destruction.

We're not that crowd, sure. But we are no more eager than they to confront how we participate in death, especially if it requires confession. Why should we be when there are GAYS somewhere that need to be told what we think of them?

Faithless. That's the word.
The Title of This Should've Been the Scene from Holy Grail Wherein Lancelot Butchers a Wedding Party
Hail to the thief (softly)- Radiohead

It's Not Unusual

There are things we must do.

Eat.
Poop.
Sleep.
Say John McCain is a war hero.

These are simply existential conditions. I don't mean existential in the confused way people sometimes mean it- perhaps saying it in response to a poignant image or mind blowing pickle. In this case, I mean existential to describe something necessarily a matter of existing, and not existing as simply taking up space and using energy. I mean necessary to a particular mode of existence. So, a certain type of person, to be the type of person they are, has to say John McCain is a war hero.

I, however, don't think there is anything heroic about dropping bombs on civilians from far above them. In certain circumstances, you probably wouldn't either. If that person were dropping bombs on you, or if that person were dropping bombs on someone you thought was "good", you would likely think that person dropping bombs was a bad guy. If there were other people trying to stop that bad guy, you might think they were your defender, and if your defenders could stop that bad guy, and make him fall from the sky, you would probably be happy, perhaps even feel more secure if they sent that bad guy to a secret prison in Guantanamo, or some CIA Black Site in Eastern Europe, or perhaps to a prison in Hanoi. That bad guy would be getting what he deserved; you would not think he was a hero. But that's probably not the person you are so one of the things you might do is say John McCain is a war hero. He is a war hero because he dropped bombs on civilians from far above them.

What do you suppose this says about this type of existence? I mean, who are you, if something you need to do as a matter of your existence is say John McCain is a war hero. Who are you if your way of being includes eating, pooping, sleeping, and valorizing the killing of people just going about their own lives?

Eh, maybe it's better to not think about it.

I For One Welcome Our New Masters

I made a perhaps too subtle reference to the anniversary of our glorious triumph over man and nature. This post may be in the same vein but in another direction. I suppose making the metaphor and its carried meaning deadly- (I mean a vein's flowing in reverse can't be a good thing).

Anyway, back when we were becoming death, the various science type persons on the Manhattan Project were given a survey asking how they thought the subsequently created device should be used. At one point, a demonstration that privately showed the power of the weapon to Japanese mucky-mucks, a demonstration that did not include use on a civilian population, was a viable option. That action was one of the survey options.

Of course we know now that it was only possible to get reliable data on the long term human consequences of the bombs by actually using them on actual humans. Anything else would have been purely academic. Plus there was the added bonus of scaring the shit out of the Soviets and letting the whole world know we were the one's in charge of this new order of new maps, stabilized currencies, world banking, and neo-colonialism. (Oh right, I use the word "shit" in this post. Language warning and all that. You know in case your nuclear era delicacies make you sensitive to that word.)

It was necessary to commit a very public act of power that showed the whole world just how great, if not wonderful, we were. We were revealing just what kind of benevolent world dictator we would be. How fitting that today's dubious commemorations should come so closely to yesterday's accomplishments.


It's not quite full circle. I mean to go from Berlin 1936 to Beijing 2008 may be a circuit, but we can't leave out August 1945 for its world stage performative relevance. What is that? An ellipse?

The Jokes Just Write Themselves

Russia moves closer to war with Georgia over South Osseti

"The Georgian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, issued a statement calling on the international community to 'give Russia the message that invading the territory of a sovereign state and bombing its territory is unacceptable in the 21st century.'"

LA Times

Where's he been?

Please, This Is Supposed To Be a Happy Occasion, Let's Not Bicker and Argue Over Who Killed Who

Well maybe not never again.