You may have noticed a recent return to “political blogging” the likes of which I haven’t done since mid 2004 to early 2005. Much of that was due to my motivation after the 2004 elections to scale way back on Bush and politics and do much more theological reading. In 2004, I read a mountain of books on the Bush administration*

This summer, as the “National Holidays” approach, I have found myself doing some more reading about America as Empire through some historical treatments: House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power by James Carroll (author of Crusade: Chronicles of An Unjust War in 2004) , the just released Ron Suskind book The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit Of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Suskind authored The Price Of Loyalty in 2004, about Paul O’Neill, the first Secretary of the Treasury for Bush) and Overthrow :America’s Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer. I never finished completely the Semour Hersh book , Chain Of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (about 2/3), so I got it back out and added it to this stack. I tend to jump around in reading, and so I ‘m about 200 pages in on both the The One Percent Doctrine (Suskind) and House Of War (Carroll), and only about 20 pages (with some peeking into later chapters) into Overthrow (Kinzer) —-the Kinzer book was on my radar after hearing Terri Gross interview him on the show “Fresh Air” on NPR. His earlier book All The Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (1993) looks like it will be becoming incresingly relevant as the Bush crew tries to get us into more trouble by adding Iran to the list for the future. This is another reason why I also added Seymour Hersh’s book to the stack. Hersh had broken the story early about the Bush administration’s starting to work up war plans for Iran.

I’m still finishing up Haurwas’ Against the Nations and Christian Existence Today (and With the Grain of the Universe waiting in the wings, which may be getting picked up soon since it is on “The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology”, and the PBS series, Faith and Reason is providing me with a good case study of the kind of thinking that is happening from the progressive perspective. I was impressed with Mary Gordon last night, but Colin McGinn fits the mold I have in my mind of the typical athiest — I know, it’s unfair to lump them—- but his arguments about there being no “arguments” FOR Faith is so typically grounded in its own “faith” or what James KA Smith calls “theology¹” , the ¹ meaning an undergirding philosophy/theology of ultimate value; a guiding principle, lof the sort that such “atheisms” deny that they have. He’s an impressive dude, but I just shook my head as he circled himself in his elevating “rationality” to the postion of ultimate truth. Of course, it takes a bit of “separation” and “filtering” to arrive at something that is either “faith” or “rationality” but not the other. I’ll have more on this. But I ramble.

I began this post to explain my seemigly sudden return to some “political reading”. It’s different now. I had begun thinking about war and non-violence a lot more since Seymour Hersh broke the story about the Bush administration doing war plans for Iran as we now see the “build up” of PR. I blogged a bit ago (have to look it up and link to it later) about how surely we can’t be serious (and don’t call me “shirley”) — no, but seriously, this is scary. Is it a sane administration that thinks it can convince an already skeptical public to do more of the same, for many of the same exact reasons? The fact that they have this Congress adds to my sense of “scariness”. It seems certain that Iran is actually far ahead in capability than what Iraq was, but it is purely ethno-centic and hubristic of the US to assume that Iranians can’t be trusted, but we can. Need I remind us all of who has been the only country to use nuclear weaponry on people? Who is capable of such justification? The United States. Should other countries band together and do a “pre-emptive” strike on the United States, who have a government now more willing and ready to do the deed than any before ? (that’s my sense) and with a corrupt media behind them who can do more of a snow-job and “sell more koolaid” than ever before. This too is fodder for its own post.
* see the list by reading more

Against All Enemies (Richard Clarke)
The Politics of Truth (Joseph Wilson)
The Price of Loyalty (Ron Suskind)
House of Bush, House of Saud (Craid Unger)
Intelligence Matters (Bob Graham)
Bush at War and Plan of Attack (Bob Woodward)
Chain of Command (Seymour Hersh)
Crusade (James Carroll)
Imperial Hubris (anonymous, then revealed to be Michael Scheuer , until just recently, intelligence officer)
Tony Campolo (Speaking My Mind)
Crimes Against Nature (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America (Molly Ivins)

Related:
A People’s History of the United States
DVD’s :
Noam Chomsky ( three different ones, via Netflix)
Howard Zinn
OutFoxed
Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War
Lots of the Al Franken show interviews with many of the above authors
Lots of Jon Stewart interviews with many of the above authors
DVD: Bonhoeffer
other books that arrived on my radar:
We the Media (Dan Gollmor)
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Joe Trippi)
Bonhoeffer: A Biography (Bonhoeffer’s collision and life with the Nazi regime made this seem relevant to me as I experienced an ever-increasing consciousness of America as an Empire)