December 25, 2003

So this blog is so fuckin kewl.

Whew . . . er, sorry!

Tom Feeley's thoughtful ICH essay discussing some spiritual aspects of progressivism - Who Really Rules This World - is an impressive piece. Excerpt:


What if it were possible to find the root of all problems? Is there a single factor, which effects all men's actions and are at the core of his decisions. I think so!

Others have mentioned the part played by religion in world history and the devastation and death it has bestowed on all those who disagreed with its particular principals. There is little doubt that religion as it is practiced by most faiths is an impediment to all who search for God. There is however a great difference between living a spiritual life and following a religion . . .

We spend our lives in servitude to "self" forever trying to satisfy its needs and desires. We buy a house and soon we wish it were a bigger house or in a different neighborhood. We get a job and soon we need a better job. We get money and find we need more money. Our efforts appear to satisfy our selves for just a little time and then we hear its cries again, for the ego or "self" is impossible to satisfy.

To put it more succinctly self is our God. Self has become so powerful in our modern world that it runs riot in our personal, political and even in our religious lives. Yes, "self" has made all religions obedient to its desires. For example, whom do you pray for? You're "self". We include others in our prayers but mostly the are concerned with requests to God for stuff for our-"selves".

Let me make this point again. "Self" rules over all religions! All religions! We have made a God of "Self" and therefore placed all our religious practices under control of "self". When "self" demands that we behave contrary to the teaching of our religions, it is a simple matter for our ego to rationalize our behavior and cloak it as "It is the will of God" or "God bless America", as we step on the rights and broken bodies of other people in our rampant desire to satisfy our "self-ish" need for power, prestige and security. Self is real. It is dangerous, and it is a God who rules over our world. Some may even call it Satan.
This is the stuff we must think about if we want to take care of each other and our home and all its crumbling beauty.

Finally, Geov Parrish, writing in Seattle Weekly, has a good piece on Howard Dean - "Ace in the Hole". Excerpts:


HOWARD DEAN WAS right, and his Democratic presidential opponents were crassly wrong for criticizing him, when he said that the capture of Saddam Hussein won't make America safer.

Dean was the spoiler of the party punch on Sunday, Dec. 14, and bully for him. Imagine any leading Democrat questioning Our Fearless Leader a year ago at such a moment of administration glory. They would have been lining up obsequiously, praising not only Saddam's capture but the policies that led to it . . .

THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY now has a procedure in place for international trials of war criminals like Saddam. The United States, under Presidents Clinton and Bush, has refused to honor it, concerned that a truly impartial process might target American foreign policy and its leaders.

It's easy to understand why. "The American Century" was also, not coincidentally, the bloodiest century in human history. Among its genocidal names, most recently we have Slobodan Milosevic, whisked off to a show trial of the NATO variety. His defense - involvement with a tawdry list of American and European administrations, arms financiers, and corporations that sold to and winked at the Serb butcher - was largely absent from U.S. media coverage . . .

There is Efrain Ramos Montt, the general who led a President Reagan-backed 1981 military coup to "restore democracy" to Guatemala. Instead, during only 16 months of power, Montt delivered 70,000 indigenous corpses. While 440 Mayan villages and their inhabitants were being systematically eradicated, Reagan was signing a 1982 waiver allowing continued arms sales, insisting that Montt was being given a "bum rap" and was "totally dedicated to democracy." Today, instead of being in jail, Montt is president of the Guatemala Congress and recently placed third in a presidential bid. Because he retires from Congress next month, the 65-year-old will lose diplomatic immunity against two pending accusations of war crimes. Will the Bush administration pursue him with anything approaching the zeal of its Saddam hunt?

It's a safe bet not. The people who aided Montt - and the equally murderous 1980s death squads in El Salvador, and death squads from that era until today in Colombia - now pepper Bush's foreign-policy establishment. One of them, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, also helped seal the 1988 deal that sent military aid to Saddam Hussein, even as reports of the gas attacks emerged.
So, folks, my fervent prayer for this season is . . . "Please let us never have to go through this again."


Be at peace.