Will Sampson this morning: There is an article in this morning’s NY Times entitled, Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat. My immediate response (a phrase I have been uttering a lot lately) – what did you think was gonna’ happen? My thoughts exactly. This is so right on. Many people (Mostly church folk, but also international relations folks) Continue Reading
AKMA this morning has a well articulated and right-on assesment of the “War on Terror”. AKMA’s Random Thoughts Our response to terrorist attacks should always be, “How can we conduct our collective affairs in such a way as to make terrorism pointless?†Saber-rattling coercive politics positively invites persistent attacks; it challenges terrorists to beat us at the game of destruction. Continue Reading
Informed Comment Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times discusses the frustrations of American officials in Baghdad with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki opposed Israel’s war on Lebanon, and has sought good relations with neighboring Iran, neither move synchronizing with US policy. To be expected. But this: He has also been slow off the mark to get Continue Reading
I read this in one of the replies Steve gives, and have some desire to go further on this: the church and postmodern culture: conversation: Applied Radical Orthodoxy To say that others are rationally entitled to their beliefs is not to say that their beliefs are correct, and, when we see that entitlement and truth are different concepts, we see Continue Reading
From Jim Wallis, about the new GodsPolitics blog: God’s Politics I want to welcome you to the first edition of “God’s Politics‖The Blog–a new project done in an exciting partnership between Sojourners and BeliefNet. The God’s Politics Blog will provide fresh conversation about faith, politics, and society–every day– from “Jim Wallis and friends.†We’ve assembled an extraordinary group of writers Continue Reading
Jamie Smith posted this a year and a half ago, as he began his blog. I was motivated to look up his early posts becuase of a comment he made in a recent post Fors Clavigera: 2005.03 Today, at this moment, I can’t help having a deep sense that we are surrounded by the fascism of various empires: political, ecclesiastical, Continue Reading
This from Juan Cole utterly exposes the self-deception of many Americans about the relative righteousness of the U.S. amongs the nations, which feeds such unwillingness to hear of anything that suggests that we exploit people, especially those of “other” nationalities). Indeed, “why do they hate us?” Let me count the ways and reasons. Here is but the latest. Informed Comment Continue Reading
After seeing Eric’s link to Hauerwas’ talk on Bonhoeffer last night, I went and watched it I took down some notes, then realized that the talk was probably online somewhere (at least the article he wrote that he was reading from). It was. It has some rather pointed things to say to the church, especially those that find themselves in Continue Reading
This from the ongoing discussion over at The Church and Postmodern Culture: the church and postmodern culture: conversation: Postmodernity vs. the Gospel? concerning ‘orthodoxy’ (that slippery term), it is so often hitched to greek understanding of ‘right doctrine/thoughts’, but really it is about correct praise or worship. Orthodoxy is concern with ‘what do we mean (don’t mean) when we worshp Continue Reading
The following description of former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles points out how easy it is to “fall” into the system of justifications and “realities” constructed for us by the brass sucked into the abyss of imperialism; the drive to increase the range of power and influence, for the sake of “free enterprise”, and of course, for “democracy and Continue Reading
This sounds all too familiar (hat tip to Josh Marshall) : Olmert bars Livni from attending UN Security Council sessions – Haaretz – Israel News The cabinet began Thursday its marketing plan to the Security Council to secure the end of the war and play up Israel’s successes. Then the obligatory crisis erupted: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert barred Foreign Minister Continue Reading
So, here’s the kicker for me: Dulles believed that the heritage of the United States, which he described as “in its essentials a religious heritage,” placed Americans under a special obligation. He felt what he called “a deep sense of mission, ” a conviction that “those who found a good way of life had a duty to help others to Continue Reading
Stephen Kinzer on John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s secretary of State, in Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq: [Kinzer’s resume list of Dulle’s influential contacts and experiences that led Dulles to develop what a biographer called “a rather simplistic” view of the world, including a] “particular interest in the commercial and financial facets of internatinal relations and Continue Reading
Further on in the interview with Chomsky, he identifies the incompetence with which this band of idiots and madmen are pushing the U.S. in way over our heads; way in over the world’s head. Norman G. Finkelstein I do not know of anyone foolhardy enough to predict. The US and Israel are stirring up popular forces that are very ominous, Continue Reading
The following excerpt is from an interview with Noamn Chomsky, which is loaded with the usual Chomsky sourcing of facts, and flies in the face of the “official stories” being sold to us by our government (which is in the business of “Manufacturing Consent”—in case you didn’t know, a Chomsky title) Norman G. Finkelstein “I should add that to the Continue Reading