Anxious About Empire, Wendell Berry

This is the 3rd of a 13 part retrospective of the 2004 book Anxious About Empire, a collection of 13 essays about The National Security Strategy of the United States.  You can find the first post here.

The third essay, entitled Thoughts in the Presence of Fear,  is written by Wendell Berry.  I know Berry is about sustainability, but have not read much of his work, just a snippet here and there, so I won’t try to summarize his works.

In this essay, Berry writes 27 Roman numeraled thoughts that build on one another.  I find his voice a bit more direct in pointing out the fact that the American people are reaping what corporate America had sown. Since this is a retrospective, I think we see that, while most of America probably hasn’t read Wendell Berry, his words were not far off from what happened five years later.  Though the population sought a change from the direction Bush had taken the country, it only changed the captain not the course.  I will quote from Berry’s last thought, XXVII:

The first thing we must begin to teach our children (and learn ourselves) is that we cannot spend and consume endlessly.  …An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product.  We need a peaceable economy.

In electing Obama, the American people showed their displeasure, frustration, and anger over the actions and policies of George W. Bush.  Berry’s “peaceable economy” is the concept most humans want to attain, but have been conditioned to consider it a utopia by those who would continue their greedy quest for wealth and power.  Americans cannot comprehend a way of life beyond the parameters of our current political and business models, therefore to break away from such strong traditions is a foreign concept, an unthinkable treachery to the “American way of life.”  So the people strive for a peaceable economy only to fall short, because the framework in which they try to institute change is designed to stop such change.

Consider the following:  Obama was/is considered the polar opposite of George Bush and in many ways, Obama IS the polar opposite of Bush.  Yet what has really changed?  Our military is still in Iraq, we are ramping up for massive troop increases in Afghanistan, torture is still an option in Obama’s back pocket, Obama saw Bush’s deficit and kept running, and the list could keep going.

The person behind the podium and the desk in the Oval Office may have changed, but the framework hasn’t, therefore America will continue down its destructive path.

The framework I speak of isn’t the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.  No it is the pervasive corporate culture that has lobbied for and put into law, policies that, as Berry puts it in thought III,

…did not acknowledge that the prosperity [of America] was limited to a tiny percent of the world’s people, and to an ever smaller number of people in the United States; that it was founded upon the oppressive labor of poor people all over the world; and that its ecological costs increasingly threatened all life, including the lives of the supposedly prosperous.

All of this ties into one of the main reasons I left the Church (capital ‘c’, as in institution) in the first place: 

For too long, the Church has intertwined itself with America’s government.  Christian flag standing next to the American flag.  Both with their own pledges of allegiances even though Jesus said in Matthew 6:24:

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Berry offers an ultimatum in his essay between an economy that is based on self-determination, justice, and sustainability and one that is based on winner takes all.  America has continued to consume more than its fair share; it has continued to artificially adjust prices to benefit the few while impoverishing the majority.  The American Evangelical Church has chosen to support the latter.  Which makes me think more and more that

the American Evangelical Church cannot be reformed because it was never the true church to begin with.

In closing, Berry’s essay takes more a stand on certain issues than the previous two essays.  The most important element not to miss about Berry’s essay is that it still evokes thought and discussion, and even passion.  This essay can still be picked up and pondered whereas the Avram and Bellah essays have dated themselves and are much less effective in bringing about  a shift in the American population’s mindset.

People must be willing to destroy the policies and laws that corporations have put in effect to benefit the few.  Just as those who see the dicotomy between the Church in America and the words and actions of Jesus have left in search of something more authentic.

-mike

 

 

o’reilly flip-flops his rhetoric on tiller, abortion

At The Huffington Post, Salon, and the Daily Kos, readers are absolutely railing against Bill O’Reilly’s past incisive rhetoric against Dr. George Tiller.

Considering O’Reilly continually called him, “Tiller the Baby Killer,” it is no surprise people are now pointing fingers at O’Reilly.  Consistently, O’Reilly used inflammatory terms to describe Tiller as a baby killer, abortions as murder and executions, compared Tiller’s clinic to Nazi camps and murder mills, and the list goes on.

The thing is, if it wasn’t O’Reilly up there spewing his garbage alongside Glen Beck and Shawn Hannity, it would be some other neo-con, evangelical filling his shoes.  Why?  Because, like Jerry Springer, there is a market and Rupert Murdoch loves the money it generates.

So now that Tiller is dead, why isn’t O’Reilly still calling him the Baby Killer?

So why the change in rhetoric tonight?  Is the issue too sensitive, or is Fox and O’Reilly concerned about losing money to a lawsuit. 

Let’s take a look at this clip, unedited and in its entirety courtesy of the Huffington Post, from O’Reilly’s segment, “Talking Points” tonight:

• :10 He uses Tiller’s full name, with no “Baby Killer” attached.
• :23 He uses Tiller’s name again without “Baby Killer” attached. 
• :25 He says Tiller “terminated” pregnancies, instead of calling them murders like he did in years past.
• :49 Tiller’s name again, still no “Baby Killer” attached.
• :57 Quotes the Washington Times using the term destroy instead of murder to describe the 60,000 abortions Tiller performed.
• :58 He uses the term fetus instead of baby.
• 1:02 Tiller’s name again, still no “Baby Killer.”
• 1:34 Finally the term “Baby Killer” is mentioned, but is deflected as a nickname used by pro-life organizations.
• 1:42 Tiller’s name without attachment, it looks like it won’t be used.
• 2:28 O’Reilly claims no backpedaling, but his rhetoric tonight is proving otherwise, subtle though it may be.
• 2:35 O’Reilly says his ‘analysis ‘ of Tiller was based on facts.
• 2:55 O’Reilly deflects criticism by mentioning Bill Ayers.
• 3:25 O’Reilly claims the real agenda of the ‘far-left’ is exploiting the death of Tiller in order to bash Fox News.
• 3:40 Uses the term fetus instead of baby.

It’s no wonder the evangelical community in America feels ganged up on and backed into a corner.  They’ve picked some real winners to be their public faces:  Bill O’Reilly, Glen Beck, Pat Robertson, and the late Jerry Falwell just to name a few. 

I just can’t imagine Jesus using these politically power-hungry people as his spokesmen in his day.  I think he had a term for them… unmarked graves, hypocrites, and brood of vipers comes to mind.

When will the true followers of Jesus vocally break away from garbage like O’Reilly and become set apart instead of apologizing and making excuses?

-mike

 

Anxious About Empire, Wes Avram

This is the second of a thirteen part retrospective on the book, Anxious About Empire: Theological Essays on the New Global Realities.  You can read the overview here. 

The second essay, On Getting past the Preamble, is written by Wes Avram, the editor of the book.  Dr. Avram has taught at the Yale Divinity School and now currently pastors a Presbyterian church in Arizona.  He also has a few articles and videos on Beliefnet.

Avram starts out his essay by comparing The National Security Strategy of the United States of America to a “Protestant confession of faith.”  He has a very strong point, one that shows that Robert Bellah’s idea of America having a “civil religion”  is very arguable. (I would tend to agree with Bellah on that point.)  Avram notes that each section of the document is headed by a terms that could be considered “charges to be followed.”  But then he does what so many apologists do, he tries to find something positive, some sort of common ground, some area that can be praised, so as to lessen the reprimand, or critique:

…[O]ne should give credit to the White House for offering the public such a document to ponder and critique.  that itself remains a testimony to American strength.

Are we the reader to believe that, even 5 years ago, if the public decried this document as foul, it would have been rescinded?!?

The National Security Strategy of the United State of America document wasn’t “offered” to the public, it was thrust upon the American public.

Hindsight is 20/20 and Avram’s questioning of vagueness on certain areas reads prophetically:

Are more potentially controversial applications of this broad strategy hidden behind generalities and couched underneath less controversial affirmations?

Um, like torture and indefinite confinement?  Rendition?  Drone and missile attacks across sovereign borders into Pakistan?  Yes, and this is why Avram and the other authors shouldn’t have been “anxious” about empire, but vocally denouncing empire.  I could understand being anxious in say, late 2001.  But 2004?  Did they want to make sure America was empire-building before speaking out, because I’m sure there are many people from other nations who could answer that question quite authoritatively.

Five years later, and I’m asking why Avram didn’t follow his essay up with stronger language, with more force to wake up his congregations and possibly the Church.  When he speaks about the Security Strategy proclaiming both economic opportunities for other countries, but defending America first, he points out that the two ideals are not compatible.  Why not follow that idea up and put it forth to the American Church at large?

Avram even adds in that being a member of the global body of Christ  puts him at odds with this policy for America.  But he doesn’t go so far as to say you can’t have two allegiances.  Which of course cuts the legs out from which he could have stood on.

Avram also brings up a great point about the document not defining terrorism:

…[M]ilitary and government officials are quick to label roadside bombs targeting military convoys as terrorism, so the presence of civilians must not be a necessary condition for something to be terrorism…

Sounds like the perfect setup for unending war to feed the military-industrial complex to me. 

Avram’s definition of terrorism makes America’s actions complicit to the acts of terrorism worldwide:

…[T]he attempt to manipulate people or policy through the cultivation of terror among those considered either directly or indirectly responsible for a harm against the persons, people, or cause of those sowing the terror.

So why not use that as the focus of his essay?  There are many good ideas in his essay, yet Avram for some reason, chooses not to pursue them.

Also, Avram does and excellent job of picking apart the policy that says “terrorists are organized to penetrate open societies and turn the power of modern technologies against us” by noting that 9/11 was carried out via box cutters, not dirty bombs, biological warfare, and other WMDs.

Avram brings up another point, but fails to drive it home when he says governments, but moreso Christians should “pay…attention…to the claims [our] enemies would make on us.”  He says:

…[I]t takes a great deal of courage… to listen to those who hate you and… admit they may have an argument…

To say that, but then list several example prefaced by the phrase, “perhaps we should” only goes to enforce the indifference of world events by a majorityof those who claim to be Christians, let alone Americans.  Looking back after 5 years, Avram was correct, but he was not forceful enough about these issues.  Had his language been stronger and cut a clearer picture, his anxiety about an American empire, could have been used to awaken Christians to pull back from the brink, especially those who staunchly supported the marriage of neo-conservatism and evangelical Christianity, and brought us to this point to begin with.

I am reminded of a quote by Martin Niemöller after reading this essay:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then… they came for me… And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

-mike

 

torture consequences lost among the partisan rhetoric

The torture issue won’t go away.  Not even the massive distraction of swine flu could keep the torture issue from staying out of focus for long.  And that is a good thing.  It shows the public is appalled at the actions taken in their name.  Inevitably, politicians will use this issue for their own gain, but that will always be true of any situation or hot-button issue.  But like I have said before, discussing torture/enhanced interrogation is moot.  The damage has already been done.

Matthew Alexander, author of How to Break a Terrorist, and Thomas Hegghammer argue the same point.

Alexander’s post on Huffington Post can be read here.  Here is a quote:

Anyone who served in Iraq, and veterans on both sides of the aisle have made this argument, knows that the foreign fighters did not come to Iraq en masse until after the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

Hegghammer’s post on Foreign Policy’s website can be read here.  Here is a quote:

Pictures from Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib have been among al Qaeda’s most widely used and most potent recruitment tools in the post-9/11 era. Since early 2002, not a day has passed without Guantánamo being mentioned somewhere on the jihadi Internet. Outrage over Abu Ghraib was the single most important motivation for foreign jihadists going to Iraq in 2004 and 2005.

But America elected Obama, the champion against torture and wrongful detention at shadowy centers, and that should fix everything, right?

No.  As much as people want to think we have fixed the problem with a simple vote, the shock-waves from the behavior by America’s military and intelligence services (both volunteer and contracted) will be felt for a long, long time.  Turn the tables and ask yourself if you would forget knowing your countrymen/family members/ friends/etc. were waterboarded?  This becomes a very serious issue when considering America’s propensity to invade Islamic nations.  While we might have been able to counter the propaganda machine of the (insert-your-favorite-terrorist-group-here) by saying our new president has stopped such practices, that option is quickly fading thanks to the political blame game taking place in Washington.

The Republican Party says that by releasing the torture memos, Obama has put America in greater danger.  But Cheney, who is trying to find a book deal, exposed the fact that Obama is still holding the torture card as an option, which puts American in even more danger.

 What?!?  I thought Obama was the champion of stopping torture and wrongful detention?!?

Yeah, like any president is going to willingly give up any power, legal or not.  The Daily Kos has done an excellent job in tracking Obama’s deflection of whether or not he would use ‘enhanced interrogation in this post.  Here is a clip (courtesy of Talking Points Memo) of David Axlerod not giving a straight answer:

So where does this leave the Church in America, the guardian of “love your neighbor as yourself?”  Showing the fault lines of countless political divisions.

• Consider the staunch Evangelical support of the Republican Party and the belief of “Deus vult!”
• Or Emergent’s love affair with breaking from all things modern and supporting Obama, starting with Donald Miller’s prayer at the DNC.

Miller references John 17 and the idea of unity, but with a political air.  And therein lies the problem.  Christians are constantly duped into partisan political divides which is exactly what Jesus prayed against in John 17:20-22:

I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

Well, the main Christo-political factions can say they are unified about one thing; the abuses carried out under the Bush administration have the potential to be carried out under the Obama administration.

-mike

 

Anxious About Empire, Robert Bellah

This is the first part of a thirteen-part series covering the essays in Anxious About Empire.  You can read the introduction here.  And of course, the author is always welcomed to respond.

The first essay in Anxious About Empire is by sociologist Robert Bellah.  Some of you may know the term “American civil religion” that Bellah coined.  Others may not, so here is a good summary from Wikipedia:

According to Bellah, Americans embrace a common “civil religion” with certain fundamental beliefs, values, holidays, and rituals, parallel to, or independent of, their chosen religion.  This belief system has historically been used to attack nonconformist and liberal ideas and groups.

Bellah also wrote Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World which could be seen as the birth-pangs of the Emergent Church.  This is a guy who has studied Marx, been a part of communism, critically analysed the religious institutions of America, and still speaks highly of faith.

This essay left me conflicted.  How can someone criticize the actions and words of Bush and his attempt at hegemony, yet come across as pro-historical empire?

I think this is the fundamental problem for all critics of empire who benefit from empire, whether we are directly complicit or not.  While we don’t like the approaches taken to maintain our security, we aren’t willing to give up that security.

I want to look first at Bellah’s pro-historical empire stance:

In human history empires are a fact of life; they have not been all bad.

So says the victors.  This single line, no matter what comes further in the essay, condones empire building.  One cannot say, that was ok, but this isn’t, yet Bellah seems to revolve around the idea that America became “an empire by default” unlike Britain and Rome who “intended to build is an empire.

He asserts that empires are benevolent structures, using a book by Lawrence Keeley, War Before Civilization as reference.  Bellah notes that Keeley argues that the Roman and British Empires brought about “the most peaceful periods in history” as well as a “degree of tranquility encouraged unprecedented economic growth.”  There are no benevolent empires, otherwise they would not be so hated, fought against, and ultimately brought down.

It is intersting that Bellah deletes the subtitle to Keeley’s book in his essay.  Was it an inconvenience that Keeley compared empires to primitive tribes, instead of empires to non-empires, as is subtly suggested?  The subtitle?  The Myth of the Peaceful Savage.

Bellah’s pro-historical American Empire stance goes on to approve of our land grabs, saying that the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny in was “modest” “compared to other empires.” He defends it as a need to provide space for our population to grow.  Did he really say we needed Lebensraum?!? 

 Bellah seems to support the idea of ‘empire done right” when considering his view of the past coupled with this statement:

 …the central point I want to make is that the American polity is in no way prepared for this world-historical role that has been thrust upon us, making it doubtful that we can sustain the hegemony the national security document assets.

 Bellah was right in his prediction in the above statement, especially as events today unfold and we pull back from the brink that was sanctioned torture and shadowy detention camps.   We will have to live with the consequences of those events however.  Approve of Obama or not, he is reaping the results of 8 years of haphazard empire-building.

Bellah feared “that this latest American outburst of ‘the arrogance of power’ will mobilize most of the world against us.” It seems he was correct in that fear.  My fear is that this idea that empire brings peace is a very isolationist viewpoint. 

From an American point of view, it would seem as though we do live in a peaceful time, and I imagine these were the same thoughts of Roman and British citizens as well.  But this point of view is completely distorted by the isolation we have from violence done in our name.

The peace we have at home comes from the fact that we are, like Britain and arguably Rome, essentially  an island nation far removed from the areas of conflict.

But then Bellah throws his pro-empire talk out the window when he compares Bush’s dismissal of the United Nations to “what the Germans, Italians, and Japanese did in the 1930s: making the League of Nations “irrelevant” by refusing to abide by its decisions.

We are not left wondering where Bellah stands on the future.  His idea of having us step down as ”king of the mountain” and replace it with the idea that nations will be “bound by a thousand ties of interdependence” is a bit naive and incongruent with the rest of his essay.

Bellah’s last paragraph is good, but puzzling considering individualism has always been a defining attribute of America:

A chance for another course, another role for America in the world, depends ultimately on the reform of our own culture.  A culture of unfettered individualism combined with absolute world power is an explosive mixture.  A few religious voices have been raised to say so.  The question of the hour is whether our fellow citizens, not to mention our leaders, are ready to hear such voices.

Looking back, our fellow citizens and leaders at the time were deaf.  The economy was roaring, and as long as everything was good, no one wanted to listen.  Would it have been different if Bellah’s words were sharper, if the Church spoke out instead of going along?  Bonhoeffer comes to mind, but then again the book is called Anxious About Empire, not Opposed to Empire.

-mike

 

book review, Anxious About Empire, a 13-part retrospective

Anxious About Empire is a collection of 13 essays written by various Christian academics and theologians ranging from Robert Bellah to Wendel Berry.  I honestly picked it up because I saw Wendell Berry’s name and knew Amos was a fan.  In the book, the primary topic is The Bush Doctrine, specifically centered around the document, “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.”

Empire is a term that I fear may be losing its potency from overuse.  It is a popular term with those who currently critique America’s actions abroad and especially among those who critique American Evangelical Christianity.  However, it is an appropriate term when considering America’s worldwide troop placement.  Empire will aways be sought after even if it is called by another name and if America is truly a ‘Christian’ nation, should this be the course pursued by such a nation? 

I tend to hold off on some current event books because not all of the details have usually been uncovered and therefore can be made obsolete quite rapidly.  If anything, their purpose is to have a hand in policy and public opinion shaping.  Not that trying to sway opinion is a bad thing, we all do it.  But some books have an alarmist tendancy that, when coupled with the immediacy of the event being covered, causes the reader to lose sight of the bigger picture.

However, the book itself says on the back cover it is “a guide not only for our current historical moment, [but] has long-term relevancy.”  So, maybe a retrospective is in order.

The book is broken down into 5 sections, each based on a rhetorical question:

1. Is It Time To Pay Attention?
2. What Must We Know?
3. How Might We Talk?
4. And If There Is No Going Back?
5. Whither The Church?

I wanted to comment on this book because these questions stood out to me as watered down, bland, and self-serving.  All of which are unfortunate, as a stronger voice of dissention from the ranks of theologians and religious intellectuals could have provided a brake to the rampant nationalism that swept the American Evangelical Church at the time of its writing.  Such  nationalism has no place in the Christian “body”, because, once there, it is quite hard to extract.

Such nationalism also leaves the Church vulnerable to exploitation by political parties.

I plan on writing 13 individual posts looking back on each essay retrospectively to see if and why their predictions and comments were accurate or not.  While a may just be a small fish in the blogging pond, the authors are always welcome to respond.

part 1 - part 2 – part 3

-mike

 

Fox, Hannity foment open rebellion?

I sat down last night to scroll through the news of the past few days and came across a news segment from Fox.  Hannity started out his show with a pandering to those upset with Obama and the government.  The Liberty Tree.  7 minutes, watch it all.  For a little humor watch Stephen Colbert analyse Fox’s Tree of Liberty.

A couple of points about the Hannity video:

• While panning across stock footage of Americans standing in unemployment lines, Hannity talks about unemployment.  The closeups however, show mainly African-Americans standing in line. Is that pandering to a latent xenophobia or racism?
• Seriously, the apples fall off a tree into a box labeled socialism?  With a hammer and sickle on the corner?
• Don’t pay any attention to the phrase “Fair & Balanced” by the Fox logo.

Please understand, I am all for free speech, I use it all the time.  But I really wonder what Fox is doing these days.  Glen Beck blubbering.  Shepard Smith dropping the f-bomb.  Tax Day Tea Party co-opting.  Now this tree?  Hearkening back to the days of yore is not the way to change anything.  America today is not America circa 1774.  Sure you can glean some lessons from the past, but seriously, grow a pair and come up with your own revolt names.  I’ve said this before  in my post, You sir, are no Samuel Adams.  

Fox News is merely pandering to the frustration of the American people.  Wanna know how?  They don’t have the stomach to put up the real quote about the Liberty Tree:

And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time…

Let them take arms.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

 

So to all you would-be patriots out there who are serious about governmental change without resorting to violence:

STOP LETTING FOX

AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

UNDERMINE YOUR EFFORTS! 

-mike

 

swine flu: a matter of profit?

Now that the torture memos are well beyond the memory span of the American population, swine flu has become, “an illness that looks very much like seasonal flu.”  That quote comes from Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC.  I was glad to find that quote because it seems to justify my musing earlier today.

If an average of 36,000 people died of the flu during last year’s flu season, how many of them died from avian or swine flu without knowing it?

We only know about the 250+ cases of swine flu in America because everyone is hyper-vigilant about tracking flu symptoms right now.  When we were in the middle of flu season just a few months ago, how many local doctors were sending in every suspected flu case to the CDC?  Not too many.

Could it be that the swine flu and avian flu circulates yearly through America as part of the flu season with nothing more than a bunch of kids out of school?

Which makes me wonder how well former Gilead chairman Donald Rumsfeld made out on this scare when I see a headline like this, “Amid swine flu, sales of antiviral drugs surging” (emphasis mine):

“Americans frightened by swine flu are snapping up two antiviral medicines that treat the disease, whether they have it or not.

…[M]ore than a quarter-million prescriptions for Tamiflu pills alone were filled… in the week ending last Friday. That’s 34 times higher than the week before and more than double the peak of last winter’s flu season.

…[D]ata also shows prescriptions for Relenza jumped to nearly 14,000, 10 times higher than the prior week.

 -mike

 

swine flu symptoms: nation-wide self-absorption

The world produces enough food to feed itself twice over, yet malnutrition is a leading cause of disease and death.  Did malnutrition have anything to do with swine flu?

Let’s look at some facts:

1. So far no one in America has died from swine flu.
2. More children died of the regular flu in 2003 -’04 (153).
3. 83 children died during the ‘07-’08 flu season.
4. The common flu kills an average of 36,000 U.S. citizens a year.

To be sure, the flu of 1918 was terrible.  So was the Black Plague.  The fact is however, for most people those are events in a history book, not recent memory.  What happens with the swine flu may turn out that bad.  Or it may be like the avian flu, petering out before killing all of us.  Which brings me to our media.

To spread, or attempt to spread, fear the way the media has been doing over the past few days is completely irresponsible, and even criminal.

That no one has died in America of swine flu does not mean we should not be cautious.  But it brings up the symptom mentioned in the title of this post; self-absorption.

If the swine flu was only contained in Mexico, like the avian flu was contained in Asia, Americans, for the most part, wouldn’t care.  Why?  Because it doesn’t directly affect us.  Let’s look at some other numbers to prove my point:

1. Malnutrition is the biggest killer in children, the cause of at least 50% of all child deaths worldwide.
2. Every second, a person dies from hunger - 4000 every hour – 100 000 each day – 36 million each year – 58 % of all deaths (2001-2004 estimates).
3. Every 5 seconds, a child dies of hunger – 700 every hour – 16 000 each day – 6 million each year – 60% of all child deaths (2002-2008 estimates)
4. The world produces enough food to feed DOUBLE our current world population according to the WHO.

So, think about all the food that we throw out of our refrigerators a week.  Think about how much food a restaurant throws away nightly.  Multiply by how many restaurants in America.  As a whole, we don’t give starving people any consideration when we leave a half-eaten meal, usually containing beef, on the restaurant table.  Well, we might box it up and take it home, but it took over 4 grain calories to make just 1 beef calorie.

Or put another way as John Robbins says in his book, Diet for a New America:

We feed [U.S. livestock] over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats.

It is hard to grasp how immensely wasteful is a meat-oriented diet-style.  By cycling our grain through livestock, we end up with only 10% as many calories available to feed human mouths as would be available if we ate the grain directly.

Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people.  Most of it is used to grow livestock feed…

…For every 16 pounds of grain and soybeans fed to beef cattle, we get back only one pound as meat on our plates.  The other 15 are…turned into manure.
The developing nations are copying us.  They associate meat-eating with economic status of the developed nations, and strive to emulate it.  The tiny minority who can afford meat in those countries eats it, even while many of their people go to bed hungry at night, and mothers watch their children starve.

If we used our grains to make sure everyone on the planet had an adequate diet, then maybe places like Mexico City and other developing countries wouldn’t be such a breeding ground for things like swine and avian flu.

Like it or not, we are all in this together and America’s self-absorption will be its downfall.

-mike

 

torture was not top secret, stop deluding yourselves

warning: graphic torture images below.

Obama released the ’supposedly top secrect’ torture memos to a hail of media criticism; especially from our good buddy Karl Rove who said:

Now all of these methods are ruined!

Oh man, way to go Obama, you ruined all of the fun.  Fun?  That’s what Rush Limbaugh had to say on May 4th, 2004 (emphasis mine):

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it and we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?

But even on May 3rd, 2004 he was at it (emphasis mine):

You know, if you look at — if you, really, if you look at these pictures, I mean, I don’t know if it’s just me, but it looks just like anything you’d see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage. Maybe I’m — yeah. And get an NEA grant for something like this. I mean, this is something that you can see on stage at Lincoln Center from an NEA grant, maybe on Sex in the City — the movie. I mean, I don’t — it’s just me.

Thanks to Media Matters’ diligence in keeping track of this stuff.

And to Obama: 

You wussed out on the opportunity to right, even marginally, some of the wrongs we have committed by not prosecuting the torturers.  Where is the ‘change’ we can believe in?

I don’t care who gave the order, I don’t care what kind of ‘ticking timebomb’-24-Jack Bauer scenario is unfolding, you do not torture.  But of course who am I kidding.  The higher-ups will get off scott-free.  But the stupid saps like Lynndie England and Charles Graner will always take the fall.

Read up on the photos you didn’t see.  The ones that were banned because they showed forced sodomy on young Muslim boys and our fearless leaders were afraid of a backlash?

Do not forget Abu Ghraib.  Torture was not a secret policy.  America just decided to ignore it.  The rest of the world didn’t. 

And as the blog Amy’s Robot shows us back in ‘04, people were aware of what was going on enough to dress up for Halloween. 

 And what happens when dumb-asses across the world decide to post their picture to a sitededicated to making fun of what happened at Abu Ghraib?  A Lynndie is born?  I don’t think those idiots would be laughing if were American/English women who were raped in that prison.  Or American/English men made to commit sodomy on one another.

But what about the real torture?  The real humiliation?  Maybe this image adds a little sobriety:

These were methods approved by a supposedly Christian president?

Honestly, it makes me wonder if other popular torture techniques from past empires made the list:

• Flogging
• Crown of Thorns
• Crucifixion
• Piercing

For the millions of Americans who haven’t left the comfort of their neighborhood Wal-Mart, let alone even thought about traveling abroad, the big bad world is a scary place.  This memo is being trumped up as even scarier and the Republicans are going to exploit that fear as much as they can.

Do not forget so quickly who got this ball rolling in the first place.  He was voted into office by the evangelicals, twice.  Nice work on the love your neighbor part.

The fact is, the rest of the world had been on the receiving end of a lot of our crap for a long time. In Central and South America.  In the Middle East.  In most developing countries.  The notion that we use torture is well-known to many…except our own citizens who live in their cruise-controlled, air-conditioned lives, insulated from the truth by fake 24-hour news, iPods, and debt.

Empire is a word I use a lot on here and I don’t want it to lose its potency.  So consider the following facts:

• The DoD manages over 32.4 million acres of land worldwide.  And while over 98% is on American soil, that leaves almost 650,000 acres in foreign countries.
• The DoD occupies 343,867 buildings worth $464 billion dollars.  Just shy of 57,000 of them are on foreign soil.
• We have troop placements of almost 370,000 in over 150 countries.

Thanks to Wikipedia and The Center for Defense Information.

At some point you have to ask yourself when enough is enough.

-mike