Lamentations 3:34-36

When all the prisoners of the land
are crushed under foot,
When human rights are perverted
in the presense of the Most High,
when one's case is subverted
--does the Lord not see it?

(NRSV)

G.K. Chesterton On Imperialism

To Imperialism in the light political sense, therefore, my only objection is that it is an illusion of comfort; that an Empire whose heart is failing should be specially proud of extremities, is to me no more sublime a fact than that an old dandy whose brain is gone should still be proud of his legs.

-G.K. Chesterton in What's Wrong with the World

Although it has taken on different forms (music, movies, culture, and now governments), America is still highly imperialistic, and its sad that a country who is having a tough enough time trying to figure itself out is so willing to help others establish a faulty system. "Look at the elections in Iraq," they say. "Look at the democracy working there." Even if it were true, is democracy working here? Meanwhile, budget cuts are taking money away from badly needed education programs, Medicaid, advocacy groups and social services while the money poured into our military sky rockets in the billions of dollars. How does it make sense when schools can't afford textbooks in many parts of our country and yet we are spending billions of dollars in Iraq, not simply for thier infrastructure but primarily for miltary equipment and weapons of violence and death?

Are we proud of Iraq while our hearts are failing at home?

How Ironic

"How ironic: from the vantage point of a society sick unto death, we puzzle over what it was in an individual that caused him to become insane. As members of a society suicidally ravishing the environment and arming ourselves to oblivion, we are perplexed at the high rates of suicide."
--Wink, Walter. Unmasking the Powers. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986. 50-51.

Wink then continues to point out that too often in the late twentieth century our therapeutic goal for troubled individuals was to help adjust them to a morbid world. We have increasingly understood what we project outward but remain nearly totally blind to what the world projects onto us. --Wink, 51.

Maybe it isn't the sickness of the individual but the sickness of the society that needs a cure.

White Picket Fences

Pictures of isolation often include a fence. Yet that is the dream of America. Green summer lawns and white picket fences, bar-b-que in our backyards with the manicured grass in the front mirrors our lives inside. This is the American dream?

Once attained, and many have attained it, what does it really offer? Poor health care, job outsourcing, confused Christians and raving liberals, high divorce rates, alienation and a sense of fear. Max Webber was right when he said capitalism was an iron cage.

And now? Fear is its padlock.

When the VP campaigned and told the audience that there would be more terrorist attacks if they were not re-elected, did he not become a terrorist? Wasn't he using the tactic of fear to achieve his objective?

From Clorox Bleach, Lysol disinfectant, SARS and the West Nile Virus, fear is being created so that we can purchase our security and throw away the very thing the system says they're offering: freedom.

This is no conspiracy, it is the 11:00 news.

But I am free to not be afraid.

I am free to not worry if my neighbor ruins my green summer lawn, or a terrorist bombs my neighborhood. My destiny does not ultimately lie in their hands. If my destiny really does lie in the hands of the Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, than I am free to die.

The American dream does not define me nor does it own me. What have I to protect that is not already his?

If I am going to war against Iraq to oust Saddam, there may be some justice in that, though it is muddy at best. But the oil, the President and the politics raises too many questions and I have a hard time believing it is worth the death of thousands of people until those questions are answered.

What are we really protecting, Mr. Bush? Or are you trying to give Iraq the same unrealized dream that once was America? How can you give what we have not become? How can you teach democracy when we need teachers ourselves? I am not even wholly convinced democracy is the best policy. It is great for the rich and for those who can afford a voice in a capitalist nation, but it ignores the poor and despises the outcast.

But hey, as long as the front lawn is green and my family and I are comfortably secure and insulated from all those horrible things, who's to complain? Just be sure to shut the gate on your way out.