Written earlier today in the absence of a strong Wifi Signa, and pulled off of the SD memory card from the PDA:

The wireless signal coming from the hotel next to my car place (where I’m getting new tires put on) is flaky…I got on just long enough to send an email to work.

The tires were needed since the existing ones were getting worn on the inside, and we’re about to embark on a trip to the DC area. I have a time set with Kayla McClung, who works with Gordon Cosby as a minister at the Church of the Saviour. I spoke with her on the phone yesterday. Looks like I’ll be meeting with her and Gordon Cosby on Monday next week.

on P.136 of In Good Company, there’s a good quote about “market forces”, and it brought home to me what I am noticing about the tendencies of the “Bush camp” Christians to jump to the defense of a social policy that affirms the “consumer mentality” that the economic powers have affirmed as right and good. The defense of an “anti-regulatory” movement (most arrogantly being carried out by the Bush administration). This defense seems to be as energetic as any overtly theological issues they may deem important.

Liberal societies train us to believe that our own self-interest is legitimate, that our greed through market mechanisms serves the common good. (a thought from ME, not Haerwas :I recall the Gordon Gecko character telling the stockholders, “Greed is good”. Greed WORKS”.) That ‘good’ turns out to be little more than an aggregate of our self-interests. For those if us produced by such socities to speak about love and economics surely sounds like madness.

In Good Company p.136

violence always needs to justify itself through deceit, and to appear, however falsely, to be defending a right or responding to a threat posed by others.

Pope, IGC, p.138

Sounds familiar, eh?

“John Paul II, through his narrative of Eastern Europe, invites us to become part of God’s people by refusing to submit to violent narratives that capture our souls by asking us to submit to false economic and political orders through seemingly meaningless and insignificant acts– likeputting yellow ribbons on church doors”

P.139

There’s a growth under Bush of the “Publishing and PR” houses asking us to do just that. (Add to that the Fox News’s and such)

“When people think they posses the secret of a perfect social organization, which makes evil impossible, they also think they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being”

Pope, p. 140 IGC

All in the name of some “theoretical” which they assure us is our fate if we fail to follow them into the abyss. It’s all for our “safety and freedom”. Disheartening. Disturbing.