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Book Review:
Beyond Chutzpah – On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse
of History,
by Norman G. Finkelstein
The impetus behind Dr. Norman Finkelstein’s book
Beyond Chutzpah is Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard lawyer
and author of The Case for Israel, a book replete with
historical fictions and ridiculous assertions. Finkelstein
became exasperated with Dershowitz’s brazen lies, self-serving
drivel, and ridiculous distortions of reality not because such
behavior is particularly uncommon but because Dershowitz was
being assisted and promoted by the entire mainstream Jewish
establishment.
By
acting as Israel’s defense attorney Dershowitz is distorting
truth in order to shield a very guilty party from the criticism
and harsh condemnation they would otherwise be receiving for
their egregious behavior. Finkelstein recognizes that the
extremely biased rhetoric of people like Dershowitz is not
helping Israel or Jews but is in fact is fuelling injustice and
will eventually lead to violent reprisals against Jews
everywhere.
New York Times reporter Chris Hedges has
observed regarding his stint in Gaza, “I had seen children
shot in other conflicts I have covered … but I had never
watched soldiers
entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."
Israel was "the only country in the world," according to
B'Tselem, "where torture was legally sanctioned." Since the
beginning of the occupation in 1967, Israel has "routinely
tortured Palestinian political suspects" (Amnesty
International). Due to this "systematic pattern," Human Rights
Watch estimated in 1994, "the number of Palestinians tortured
or severely ill-treated"—often without even a pretense that
these detainees were guilty of any wrongdoing—"is in the tens
of thousands."
...
Israel is "the only democratic country" that regards political
liquidations as a "legitimate course of action" (B'Tselem),
placing it "among an infamous group of states that grossly
violates basic moral and humane norms that the international
community considers binding" (Public Committee Against Torture
in Israel and the Palestinian Society for the Protection of
Human Rights). Israel presents no evidence supporting its
charges against those targeted for assassination. The targets
typically don't pose any imminent danger and, alternatively,
could have been apprehended, while numerous bystanders have
been indiscriminately killed and injured.
...
Mainly on account of Israel's closure policy,
the West Bank and Gaza currently verge on a "humanitarian
catastrophe" (U.N. Com mission on Human Rights). Finally,
Israel's "regime of separation" in the Occupied Territories
"is the only one of its kind in the world," according to
B'Tselem, "and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the
past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa."
Yet, against this copiously documented record
of egregious human rights violations, Alan Dershowitz
contends, and purports to have proven, that Israel's human
rights record in the Occupied Territories is "generally
superb." [p. 221-222]
Since
about 1967 two myths have come to predominate: you cannot be
Jewish without also being a Zionist, and all criticism of Israel
is anti-Semitism. Finkelstein combats both of these myths
primarily by countering the written and public statements of
Alan Dershowitz.
In The Holocaust Industry, this writer
documented that American Jewish elites didn't become enamored
of Israel until after the June 1967 war; when it became
politically and personally expedient to be a Zionist.
Likewise, they didn't discover the Nazi holocaust until
after the June war, when it proved useful for deflecting
criticism of Israel. Alan Dershowitz perfectly fits this
profile. He reports that it was only in 1967 that "I first
began to make the case for Israel on university campuses, in
the media, and in my writings" (p. vii)—that is, when it
required roughly as much pluck as for his counterpart at
Moscow University to make the case for Cuba.
…
"My friends from Brooklyn and I, who never discussed the
Holocaust when we were growing up, talk about it all the time
now." No doubt they do, since, in contrast to the
1950s, it's now politically convenient to invoke the
Nazi holocaust. Dershowitz's convenient love affair with
Israel and anguish over the Holocaust points to the ugliest
truth about his wretched book. Throughout the past year this
writer has stated in public lectures that The Case for
Israel is replete with egregious falsehoods. Yet the
biggest fraud is the
title itself. Dershowitz hasn't written a case for Israel. How could
anyone genuinely concerned about the Israeli people counsel
policies certain to sow seeds of hatred abroad and moral
corruption within? What he has in fact written is the case for
the destruction of Israel. Letting others—Palestinians as well
as Jews—pay the price while he plays the "tough Jew": isn't
this what Dershowirz's chutzpah really comes down to?
[p. 225-226]
Finkelstein tells the world everything that the
Jewish establishment doesn’t want the world to hear. Not
surprisingly he is often under personal attack from
Israel’s blind supporters and their moneyed interests: they
can’t assail his facts so they resort to attacking the
messenger. The
main tool used by the Jewish establishment to stifle criticism
and shut-down free and open discussion about the roots of
conflict in the Middle East and Israel is, of course, the
slander of anti-Semitism.
Each campaign to combat the “new anti-Semitism"
has coincided with renewed international pressures on Israel
to withdraw from occupied Arab territories in exchange for
recognition from neighboring Arab states.
[p. 22]
Here are a
few examples of today’s “anti-Semites”:
One possibility the
[Nathan and Ruth Ann] Perlmutters
[publishers of the book The Real Anti-Semitism]
didn't entertain was that Israel might be in the wrong. Real
anti-Semites didn't just include usual suspects like the
National Council of Churches, which "called on Israel to
include the PLO in its Middle East peace negotiations," and
the United Nations, which "has become an arena for vicious
assaults on Jewish interests"—such as supporting a two-state
settlement. Rather, defined by the damage, however indirect,
they might inflict on Israel, anti-Semites, in the
Perimutters' lexicon, was a catchall for, among others, those
wanting to "scuttle the electoral college" in the name of
democracy, which would diminish the clout of American Jews
(concentrated in swing states) and concomitantly diminish
Jewish influence over Middle East policy; those calling for
peaceful resolution of conflicts and cuts in the military
budget, on account of which "nowadays war is getting a bad
name and peace too favorable a press"—plainly a disaster for
Israel; those opposing nuclear power, which would increase
"the West's dependency on OPEC oil … “
[p.28]
Finkelstein has a sharp sense of humor, making
his book fun to read and since so much of what he writes about
concerns
ridiculous statements and outrageous behavior perhaps laughter
really is the best way to deal with it. Indeed, the slander of
anti-Semitism leads to some absurd yet highly revealing
situations:
[I]t's hard not to
savor—or not to be revolted by—the ironies of this episode: a
Jewish professor at a German war college defending the use of
torture is publicly reprimanded, after which the Jewish
professor, wrapping himself in the mantle of The Holocaust,
accuses of anti-Semitism those Germans deploring his advocacy
of torture and, explicating the lessons of The Holocaust,
declares that while The Holocaust forbids Germans (and
everyone else) from being perpetrators, it entitles Jews to do
as they please. [p. 48]
The malleable definition of anti-Semitism
deflects criticism of Israel, Jews, Israeli government policy,
and anything else the Jewish establishment wants shielded.
[I]f mainstream Jewish organizations lend
uncritical support to every Israeli policy, however criminal,
indeed, abetting the most virulent tendencies inside Israel
and muzzling principled dissent outside Israel; if Israel
defines itself juridically as the sovereign state of the
Jewish people, and Jews abroad label any criticism of Israel
anti-Jewish— the real wonder is that the spillover from
antipathy toward Israel to Jews generally hasn't been greater.
[p. 82]
Anti-Semitism is used to beat the German public
into submission:
If Germany was once the European hotbed of
anti-Semitism, it has now become the hotbed of philo-Semitism:
on the one hand, "politically correct," utterly cynical public
officials and media ferret out anti-Semites where a smattering
are to be found, resembling nothing so much as the medieval
witch hunts; and on the other, Israel's apologists, holding
Germany in thrall, exploit the Nazi horrors to strike down any
criticism of Jewish leaders or Israel, stifling public
discourse and stoking private resentment.
This isn't the first time German public opinion
has been manipulated into fighting a phantom "new
anti-Semitism." In 1981, as pressures mounted on Israel to
negotiate a two-state settlement with the Palestinians, the
Union of Jews and Christians issued a declaration entitled "On
the Danger of a New Anti-Semitism" at the German Evangelical
Churchday. It cautioned that "signs of a relapse into
hostility towards Jews are currently on the rise," alleging in
particular that '[b]ehind the criticism of the Israeli
government, . . . the old anti-Semitism is visible."
[p.36]
The ‘new anti-Semitism’ and the ‘War on
Terrorism’ are cut from the same cloth:
The consequences of the calculated hysteria of
a new anti-Semitism haven't been just to immunize Israel from
legitimate criticism. Its over-arching purpose, like that of
the "war against terrorism," has been to deflect criticism of
an unprecedented assault on international law.
[p. 45]
Finkelstein’s
analysis of the historical record is extremely informative, for
instance on the creation of Israel:
That a U.N. General Assembly majority approved
the Partition Resolution, Louis recalls, was due in no small
part to Zionist machination: "[T]he Zionists were able to
launch a campaign that left the President and officials at the
State Department reeling under a bombardment of letters,
telegrams and telephone calls. Truman wrote in his memoirs
that he never 'had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at
the White House as I had in this instance.' . . . Emmanuel
Cellar and Sol Bloom in the House of Representatives exerted
their considerable influence on Congressional colleagues, the
executive branch, the State Department, and in particular on
the United Nations representatives from the Philippines,
Liberia, and Haiti. Ten Senators sent telegrams to the
President of the Philippines, who also received the friendly
admonition of Felix Frankfurter and another Supreme Court
Justice. . . . The Cuban Ambassador, who remained
recalcitrantly pro-Arab, complained that the Costan [sic]
Rican vote had been bought with a $75,000 bribe. Niles [a
pro-Zionist adviser to Truman] used business connections in an
abortive effort to swing the Greek vote. Bernard Baruch let
the representatives from China and France know that nothing
less than economic assistance would he in jeopardy if they
failed to vote in favour of partition. Harvey Firestone
brought Liberia to heel. As Robert Donovan summed it up in an
understatement in his biography of Truman, intrigue was rife."
In addition, '[i]n 1947, there was not yet a solid
'anti-colonial' bloc" in the U.N. Finally, the "overriding
Russian aim" in supporting the resolution was not achieving
justice but “the disruption of the British Empire.” [p. 284-285]
Sadly, Alan Dershowitz isn’t the only clown on
the this pathetic stage. Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL) get some well deserved criticism for their
hypocrisy and disingenuousness as defenders of civil liberties:
Returning to this side of the Atlantic, Foxman
also waxes ominous on the "dark underbelly" of the Internet,
"where the virus of anti- Semitism is ready to be spread."
Although he professes opposition to government censorship, one
must take with a shaker of salt his avowal that "the best
antidote to hate speech, I've always maintained, is more
speech." In the very same pages he boasts that "ADL has worked
closely with several major Internet companies to establish and
enforce clear guidelines regulating what is acceptable and
unacceptable on their sites," and laments the fact that "some
Internet service providers have been less willing to establish
firm policies against hate speech." He cites as an egregious
offender Earthlink's "acceptable use policy," which "supports
the free flow of information and ideas over the Internet" and
allows for the distribution of "Hitler's Mein Kampf and
more than two dozen of Hitler's speeches. It's not illegal
activity, but the message is clearly hateful." Beyond the fact
that Hitler's Mein Kampf and speeches are primary
historical sources and clearly ought to be studied if
we are to learn from the past, it bears keeping in mind
Foxman's definition of hateful.
[p.55]
And now Elie Wiesel’s turn in Finkelstein’s
spotlight:
Wiesel professed bewilderment that "60 years
after the worst tragedy in human history," and although he had
been "convinced that anti-Semitism had died in Auschwitz," jew-hatred was once again on the
rise. In his OSCE speech, Wiesel similarly lamented that after
the war he "naively thought that, for years and years to come,
whenever a Jew would be seen anywhere in Europe, he or she
would be carried on people’s shoulders and enveloped by
everyone."
…
In his U.N. speech Wiesel called anti-Semitism
"the oldest collective bigotry in recorded history," as well
as one that uniquely combined all other forms of bigotry.
Everything about Jews is unique: anti-Semitism, the Holocaust,
Israel, Jewish nationhood and peoplehood ... Beyond its
repellent chauvinism, this intellectually hollow doctrine of
uniqueness serves the useful ideological function of allowing
Israel to claim unique moral dispensation: if Jewish suffering
was unique, then Israel shouldn't be bound by normal moral
standards. [p. 62] (italics added for
emphasis)
With so many people too cowardly and afraid to
speak up and risk being slandered as an anti-Semite the
Holocaust has subsequently been turned into an extortion-based
cash-machine by the Jewish establishment with a complicit
mass-media to legitimize the scam:
Just as it's too simple (and convenient) to
label accusations of Jewish responsibility for Israeli policy
anti-Semitic, so it's too simple (and convenient) to
label the notion of Jewish power anti-Semitic. Jews now rank
as the wealthiest ethnic group in the United States; with this
economic power has accrued substantial political power. Their
leaders have wielded this power often crudely, to mold
U.S. policy regarding Israel. These leaden have also utilized
this power in other realms. Under the guise of seeking
"Holocaust reparations," American Jewish organizations and
individuals at all levels of government and in all sectors of
American society entered into a conspiracy—this is the correct
word—to blackmail Europe. It was on account of "Jewish money"
that the Clinton administration went along with this shakedown
operation, providing—even to the detriment of U.S. national
interests—crucial support for it at every juncture.
And who can seriously believe that the pro-Jewish bias of the
corporate media has nothing whatever to do with the
influential Jewish presence at all levels of it? "It's
undoubtedly true that there are prominent Jews among the
producers, directors, studio executives, and stars in
Hollywood," Foxman concedes. "It's even true that,
proportionately, there has always been a relatively prominent
Jewish presence in the movie, TV, and record industries."
[p. 83]
Israel’s
state policy of assassinating opponents comes under harsh
criticism by everyone except the Jewish establishment. The true
intention of the Israeli government is not to seek peace but to continue war because they believe they can win
something from it.
The evidence strongly suggests that the
main, anticipated, and intended effect of political
liquidations has been to stimulate terrorist attacks.
"Whoever gave a green light to this act of liquidation knew
full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the
gentleman’s agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian
Authority" Israeli journalist Alex Fishman wrote in Yediot
Ahronot after the November 2001 assassination of a Hamas
leader.
[p.140]
The unnecessary and hateful cruelties inflicted
upon the Palestinians by the Israeli war-machine could fill
volumes, yet most is never reported by the U.S. mass-media.
Disputing Israeli claims that this massive
destruction was inflicted due to military necessity, HRW found
that "armed Palestinian resistance ... was light, limited and
quickly overwhelmed within the initial hours of each
incursion." During one attack, the IDF destroyed, in a "time-
consuming and deliberate act" lacking any military
justification, a zoo in Rafah: "The zoo was one of the few
recreational areas in an over crowded camp whose residents
have been denied access to the sea by Israeli settlements for
the past four years. Thousands of animals, including jaguars,
crocodiles, wolves, snakes and birds escaped from the zoo or
were killed during its demolition."
[p. 184]
Unfortunately,
most of Israel’s state violence is supported by the vast
majority of Israeli citizens.
When Israel's violent repression of the first
intifada reached new heights of brutality in 1989, more
than half of all Israelis supported the deployment of yet
"stronger measures" to quell the largely nonviolent civil
revolt (only one in four supported any lessening of the
repression), while "an overwhelming 72 percent . . . saw no
contradiction between the army's handling of the uprising and
'the nation's democratic values.' " (iii) Operation Defensive
Shield (March—April 2002), although wreaking devastation on
Palestinian society and culminating in the commission by
Israeli forces of "serious violations" of humanitarian law and
“war crimes" in Jenin and Nablus, was supported by fully 90
percent of Israelis. Beyond the emotional
support that Israelis have lent to crimes of state, it
bears emphasis that Israel relies on a citizen army to
implement policy: the collective responsibility of the Israeli
people accordingly runs much deeper than "moral complicity."
Finally, Israel couldn't commit such crimes without
unconditional political and economic support from the United
States, and it's the likes of Dershowitz who, through
shameless apologetics and brazen distortions, crucially
facilitate this unconditional support. What if Dershowitz's
home were subject to the
"benign form of collective
accountability" (p. 168) he urges for Palestinians? [p
177]
Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah is an
excellent book, thoroughly researched, informative, revealing,
and well written; anyone concerned about world events should
read it. 12.01.08
Beyond Chutzpah – On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse
of History,
by Norman G. Finkelstein, University of California Press,
2005, hardcover edition.
* * *
Here's some
revealing additional context for
Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah:
Klinghoffer's murder was properly viewed
with horror and is very famous. It was the topic of an
acclaimed opera and a made-for-TV movie, as well as much
shocked commentary deploring the savagery of Palestinians -
"two-headed beasts" (Prime Minister Menachem Begin), "drugged
roaches scurrying around in a bottle" (Chief of Staff Raful
Eitan), "like grasshoppers compared to us," whose heads should
be "smashed against the boulders and walls" (Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir). Or more commonly just "Araboushim," the slang
counterpart of "kike" or "nigger".
Thus, after a particularly depraved display of
settler-military terror and purposeful humiliation in the West
Bank town of Halhul in December 1982, which disgusted even
Israeli hawks, the well-known military/political analyst Yoram
Peri wrote in dismay that one "task of the army today [is] to
demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are
Araboushim living in territories that God promised to us", a
task that became far more urgent, and was carried out with far
more brutality, when the Araboushim began to "raise their
heads" a few years later.
We can easily assess the sincerity of the sentiments expressed
about the Klinghoffer murder. It is only necessary to
investigate the reaction to comparable US-backed Israeli
crimes. Take, for example, the murder in April 2002 of two
crippled Palestinians, Kemal Zughayer and Jamal Rashid, by
Israeli forces rampaging through the refugee camp of Jenin in
the West Bank. Zughayer's crushed body and the remains of his
wheelchair were found by British reporters, along with the
remains of the white flag he was holding when he was shot dead
while seeking to flee the Israeli tanks which then drove over
him, ripping his face in two and severing his arms and legs.
Jamal Rashid was crushed in his wheelchair when one of
Israel's huge US-supplied Caterpillar bulldozers demolished
his home in Jenin with his family inside. The differential
reaction, or rather non-reaction, has become so routine and so
easy to explain that no further commentary is necessary.
From: 'The
world' according to Washington, by Noam Chomsky, ATOL,
February 28, 2008.
Book review: Ken Smith’s Guide to the Bible, by Ken Smith,
1995, Blast Books.
Some people claim
that the Bible is the most read book in the world. Although the
Bible may well be the most widely circulated book it seems that
most people have a Bible simply for appearances alone and
rarely, if ever, read what’s inside it! That’s where Ken Smith,
author of Mental Hygiene and Raw Deal, enters the
picture. Ken Smith goes where even the most devout Christians
fear to tread by reading and reviewing even the stuff they would
rather forget is in there, you know, all the glaring
contradictions, the terrible moral and ethical rules and
examples littering the Old Testament, and of course the just
plain bizarre.
Smith doesn’t take
what’s written in one version of the Bible as gospel but
actually reads several of them giving us some interesting, and
amusing, comparisons in the process. Ken Smith’s Guide to the
Bible is a short and revealing book that’s fun to read too.
Here are a few notable excerpts:
Jacob and his extensive family, from
whom the nation of Israel descends, are some of the sleaziest,
trashiest people in the Bible.
[Page 25]
Smith proceeds to
cite numerous examples, here’s a typical one:
Jacob becomes rich by cheating his
father-in-law out of his best sheep and goats. Jacob then
skips town with his booty and his women and tells Rachel and
Leah that his prosperity is an act of God. - Genesis 30:31-34,
37-42; 31:4-5, 8-9
[page 26]
Consider for a
moment that these characters are role models and heroes for
Jews!
God confesses that the only reason ~
chosen people while they were in the wilderness is that it
would have made Him look bad. - Ezekiel 20:13-14
God admits that He gave His chosen
people purposefully bogus laws and rituals in the wilderness
to make their lives miserable. - Ezekiel 20:25-26
God decrees that no matter how much
the chosen people may want God to go away and leave them
alone, He will never let them go. - Ezekiel 20:32-33
[all page 69]
On the colorful prophet Daniel:
Daniel's ravings are just the kind of
material that religious wackos relish; they sound so ominous
and important that they should mean something, yet
they're so opaque and muddled that they could mean anything.
They will never lack for interpreters; someone will always be
around, earnest, eager, and self-assured, to explain them.
The only appearance of the word
"intelligence" in the Bible is in Daniel, and only in the
archaic English of the King James Version. It means "favorable
regard." It has been revised out of every modern translation.
– Daniel 11:30 [page 74]
Explains a lot doesn’t it?
Paul explains that God specifically
chooses poor and stupid people to be Christians so that He'll
seem more powerful when the Christians triumph over rich and
smart people. - I Corinthians 1:26-29
[page 122]
More of the New Testament’s Paul:
... women should be silent in the
churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be
subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they
desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home...." - I
Corinthians 14:34-35 [page 126]
Much of the Holy
Bible is either blatantly contradictory or simply absurd
depending on how you look at it.
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is
the death of His faithful ones." - Psalm 116:15
Really more than
anything Ken’s book is just frightening when you realize that
millions of people actually believe the Bible with some even
going so far as to take all of what is written within as literal
truth and not simply as a parable, a morality lesson, or a weird
historic relic. 27.05.07
Quiverfull: When Missionaries Aren't Enough
Have you ever encountered stupidity so intense that it makes
your head hurt just trying to comprehend it? Well get out the
bottle of aspirin because all that and more is on display in
this startling article in The Nation magazine, Christian
Mothers Breed 'Arrows for the War', by Kathryn Joyce. These
Christian mothers are part of a loose movement that literally
interprets a line from the first book of the Bible (Genesis 9:7)
in order to have as many children as they physically can.
“As for you, be fruitful and increase in
number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
These people call themselves "Quiverfull".
They borrow their name from Psalm
127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in
one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame when they contend with their
enemies in the gate." Quiverfull mothers think of their
children as no mere movement but as an army they're building
for God.
Quiverfull parents try to have
upwards of six children. They home-school their families,
attend fundamentalist churches and follow biblical guidelines
of male headship--"Father knows best"--and female
submissiveness. They refuse any attempt to regulate pregnancy.
Quiverfull began with the publication of Rick and Jan Hess's
1989 book, A Full Quiver: Family Planning and the Lordship
of Christ, which argues that God, as the "Great Physician"
and sole "Birth Controller," opens and closes the womb on a
case-by-case basis. Women's attempts to control their own
bodies--the Lord's temple--are a seizure of divine power.
Quiverfull is the deleterious fusion of biology and human
stupidity in a wonderfully revealing package, just read the full
article and you’ll see why, but nevertheless the political and
demographic situation they are responding too, as well as the
underlying biological rules they are operating on, are something
to respond to.
Many belief systems spread their faith through missionaries that
canvas the planet to convert others from their wayward ways.
Quiverfull has gone one step further and decided to simply make
their own converts through biological reproduction (less room
for error). Hence the need for home schooling and cloistered
social lives so the new ‘warriors for God’ don’t get any
dangerous ideas from the outside world.
So the most obvious reason for unrestrained reproduction in this
case is to spread the belief system, but there is also a subtext
of politics, culture and race too. By studying current
demographic trends it is evident that the conservative voters in
the United States have more children than the liberal voting
regions, think central versus coasts. Over decades voting
patterns will, hypothetically, become more religiously oriented
and socially conservative thereby moving the country towards
bans on abortion, homosexuality and every other hot-button issue
for Christian fundamentalists in America. The other motive in
play has to do with racial demographic trends.
Population is a preoccupation for many
Quiverfull believers, who trade statistics on the falling
white birthrate in European countries like Germany and France.
Every ethnic conflict becomes evidence for their worldview:
Muslim riots in France, Latino immigration in California,
Sharia law in Canada. The motivations aren't always racist,
but the subtext of "race suicide" is often there.
Reproduction rates for the White race are at below replacement
level in Europe and about break even for North America with the
exception of Mormon Utah. Conversely the rest of the
(developing) world is reproducing very rapidly and growing in
numbers despite war, disease and lack of resources. It is also
worth mention that the technologically developed Asian nations,
such as Japan and South Korea, are running well below
replacement fertility rates.
A connection definitely exists between technological development
and reproduction levels but if we step back and establish some
historical context we can avoid the need for panic over the
narrow snapshot given to us by current demographic trends.
Actually population concerns are probably blown out of
proportion. We have more people on this planet today than ever
before in world history yet our finite natural resources are in
decline. Fish stocks in the ocean for example are predicted to
be exhausted within 50 years and already many parts of the sea
have been over-fished and turned into deserts. Large fish
species are rapidly disappearing through rampant fishing to be
replaced with smaller and smaller ones. Conservation of natural
resources to sustain our current way of life is one very
powerful reason for limited, or no, human population growth.
Human reproduction rates can self-balance when people,
especially women, have the power to control it. Remember that
just fifty years ago the major crisis of the future, meaning our
today, was a global time bomb of overpopulation but in actuality
the world’s population didn’t hit 10 billion in the year 2000
and in fact has tapered off. In the developed world the current
crisis is now under-population with birth rates below
replacement levels. Back and forth, back and forth. The point is
that planet Earth is already filled to the brim with people, we
don’t need more quantity we need better quality!
Any country that allows women the ability to control their
reproduction will not have a problem with over-population, while
regressive and religious countries that deny women the right to
control their bodies will have a major crisis with all the
ensuing problems of violence, resource scarcity, poverty, war,
disease, and so on. The process is like shifting gears, we are
gong from the archaic method of survival to the modern method.
Instead of breeding for quantity because of high death rates
from environmental factors coupled with a low standard of living
we are moving towards breeding for quality through fewer numbers
and a higher standard of living.
But overpopulation and resource scarcity are not concerns for
religious fundamentalists since, according to them, God will
provide and the Earth belongs to Satan anyway.
Pastor Heneghan of Gospel Community Church sees
the issue of population growth in more biblical terms,
specifically those taken from Genesis and Revelation. "Some
people think that what I'm doing--having eleven children--is
wrong. I don't really get into that much. The Bible says 'be
fruitful and multiply.' That's my belief system. They don't
believe in God, so they think we have to conserve what we
have. But in my belief system, He's going to give us a new
earth."
The Quiverfull movement is part of a reaction to modernity,
especially ‘feminism’ in this case, that many Christians equate
with all the ‘moral evils’ of contemporary society from divorce
and homosexuality to contraception and women competing with men
in the workplace.
People that aren’t burdened by religious beliefs tend to have
fewer offspring but they have more money and influence because
they recognize the issues and problems that affect us all right
now, they live for life instead of living for death and a vague
promise of benefits upon final arrival. It seems like the more
that secular reality intrudes into the cloistered world of the
religious the more extreme they become in order to maintain a
separate identity and to react against modernity. In many ways
this is evidenced in the Middle East where extreme religious
regression is colliding with modern influences. Saudi Arabia for
instance was nothing but nomadic tribes 50-100 years ago before
oil made the king rich and turned tents in the desert into
cities. Severe regression in a religious package is not
surprising given the rapid pace of change.
This struggle is as old as technology. Many people try to turn
back the clock and recreate the past. Sometimes these
regressionists seize power and start wars, sometimes the whole
scheme implode into civil war, but they always fail one way or
another because all it takes is a small group of forward
thinking individuals to embrace the future and defeat everyone
else that rejects the new and innovative.
What’s the Appeal?
Probably the most glaring issue, and the
particular focus of the article’s author, is why the women
support this ‘plop ‘till you drop’ reproductive plan. There’s no
personal benefit to doing this, parents don’t need many kids to
care and provide for the family like they do for economic
reasons in the developing (non-modern) world. In fact having
more than three kids is a major economic burden on
families that pretty much guarantees the parents will live in
poverty for their entire lives. Too many children is also a
disservice to the future of the kids, depriving them of the
resources to get a quality education, at least without massive
state assistance. Kids and parents will be less healthy because
they are less able to afford health care for all of them. The
mothers are burdened most of all even though in this case they
seem to be enthusiastic about their subservience to patriarchy
and voluminous reproduction. Child-birth and large family
maintenance is hardly a walk in the park for fun, one has to
factor in a hefty does of ignorance and social isolation to make
the equation balance out, in other words all they know is what
the Bible tells them.
So why do this? Why have a dozen kids despite the
fact that it confers no economic benefits to the parents and
family and despite the fact that it reduces just about every
other facet of healthy and productive modern life? It does give
the women a purpose in life and an established place in the
social framework. Like all religion it fulfills a need to
conform and be accepted into a social group and a sense of
identify is achieved through adherence to an arbitrary belief
system. Religion is especially appealing to weak intellects
because it so neatly absolves the individual of the need for
critical thought and analysis of life’s problems since every
problem already has an answer pre-packaged in the Holy Book, and
if you can’t find it you just re-arrange the words to get the
answer you want to see.
The mental reasoning driving Quiverfulls is that
they are just doing it out of belief, based on a religious
principal. But there are cultural and biological reasons
involved too expressed as race competition and belief
competition. Whether they realize it or not what the
Quiverfulls
believe in is social fascism straight out of the Plato handbook.
In both Carlson's writings and in the work of
Mary Pride and the Hesses, this is reflected in their
description of patriarchal families as the basic "cellular
units of society" that form a bulwark against Communism, as
well as in the military-industrial terminology they assign to
biblical gender roles within such "cells": the husband
described as company CEO, the wife as plant manager and the
children as workers. Or, in alternate form, the titles revised
to reflect the Christian church's "constant state of war" with
the world: "Commander in Chief" Jesus, the husband a
"commanding officer" and his wife a "private" below him. And
the kids? Presumably ammunition, arrows, weapons for the war.
Troubling Times
This article really bothered me on a visceral
level, I think maybe it is just the archaic, alien nature of the
beliefs these people are actualizing. It’s the crude
primitiveness of it that is so shocking because it is such an
anachronism given contemporary problems and technological and
resource development. ‘Be fruitful and multiply’ interpreted as
have a s many babies as you possibly can is like the philosophy
of cave people from 15,000 years ago, it is what they desired
but couldn’t achieve because of severe environmental pressures
and lack of resources. Yet today this is what we can achieve but
shouldn’t desire! Just like the same cave-people wished they
could eat until they were fat as a walrus, but now we can
because we have the nutrient resources but shouldn’t because it
kills us. The genetic impulse to reproduce in unlimited numbers
is just like the genetic impulse to overindulge until obesity
and eventual death from the health complications of being
grossly overweight. Clearly, if biological impulse was the only
factor driving human behavior the human species would have gone
extinct millions of years ago. But we are still here because we
have this thing in our head called a brain, and when it
is used properly we can make objective, rational
decisions that over-ride the short-term gains from impulse and
deliver long-term gains from planning and careful
decision-making. Imagine that.
Here in one of the more dimwitted states of the
American Midwest we had a ballot issue this November concerning
the regulation of stem cell research. So of course the
conservatives and the religious types were opposed to making
stem cell research legal, but in this case voting ‘yes’ wasn’t
quite that simple for you see the law to approve stem cell
research also makes human cloning illegal! So as it is now,
since the law barely passed, it is illegal to produce human
clones in this state. So my question is will parents that
produce identical twins be charged for breaking the law?!
Besides the humor involved in this absurdity my point is that if
the
if some people
are so reactionary in response to their ignorance of natural
biological functions
already and constantly in a state of panic over
the change inherent within modern life, what are they going to
do in 25 years when the stunning nanotech and biotech
breakthroughs of today become practical reality? We could be
exploring the stars and distant planets but instead we’re
battling the regressionist tendencies of millions of people that
spend their time scouring the Bible for trenchant insight while
trying to have more babies than the Mexican family next door so
they can vote America into a Christian theocracy. As vast as our
human potential is, why should we be weighted down in the mire
by the most fear-ridden and narrow-minded?
Even for racial competition this doesn’t seem
like that great of an idea because it isn’t numbers that matter
as much in the modern developed world so much as it is command
of resources. Skill, intelligence and merit will take an
individual much farther than the color of their skin.
Former religious fundamentalists and especially
their children make some of the most militant atheists around
when they finally break free. If they want a war then the rest
of the world will be ready to oblige but the final outcome won’t
be as black and white as Christian evangelicals and the rest of
the world’s religious fundamentalist think it will be.
You can run from reality and
progress but you can’t hide from it. 19.11.06
1.
Christian Mothers Breed 'Arrows for the War', by Kathryn
Joyce, The Nation, November 27, 2006 issue.
The Jewish State by Theodor Herzl, 1896
Zionism is such a
major factor in 20th century events, and continues to
be a major force in in the 21st century, that it only
makes sense to read what the source of Zionism had to say on the
topic. Theodor Herzl was born into a Jewish family in Budapest
Hungary in 1860. He is responsible for authoring and selling the
concept of a state specifically for the Jewish people. Herzl’s
conception of a Zionist homeland for Jews came about from his
concern over the continual animosity and conflict between Jews
and Christens in Europe. Although intentions are often difficult
to discern from writing alone, Herzl seemed to honestly desire a
solution that would be acceptable to Europeans and that would
still be beneficial to Jews.
Although a
journalist by trade Herzl acts the part of a salesman with
The Jewish State as the sales pitch he published in 1896.
The author spins his arguments every way he can to make it seem
credible to his audience. Despite the questionable reliability
of some of his statements he does make many convincing points
and the overall message is a win-win argument for both Jews and
gentile Europeans. The book is often too long on details that
clearly were not going to matter greatly upon implementation and
a little short on the important concepts. Like any visionary
Herzl had to strike a balance between specifics and generalities
in an environment full of critics and pessimists.
In his analysis of
the ‘Jewish Question’ Herzl found many reasons for trying to
create a separate state for Jews and one was his keen awareness
of the social vulnerability of Jews within a foreign society.
At the same time we continue to
produce an abundance of mediocre intellects who find no
outlet, and this endangers our social position as much as does
our increasing wealth. Educated Jews without means are now
rapidly becoming Socialists. Hence we are certain to suffer
very severely in the struggle between classes, because we
stand in the most exposed position in the camps of both
Socialists and capitalists. [Page 87]
Herzl was cleary
Influenced by turn of the century socialism and labor reform. He
firmly believed in a new labor standard of seven hour work days
and was so enamored with this idea that he even wanted it worked
into the new flag of Zionism:
We have no flag, and we need one. If
we desire to lead many men, we must raise a symbol above their
heads.
I would suggest a white flag, with
seven golden stars. The white field symbolizes our pure new
life; the stars are the seven golden hours of our working-day.
For we shall march into the Promised Land carrying the badge
of honor. [Page 147]
Like so much of the
Herzl’s Zionist dream the flag didn’t make it beyond the drawing
board either.
Herzl threw out the idea of
negotiating with the Ottoman Empire for land. He also foresaw a
continuing obligation on the part of Europe to protect the new
Jewish state.
Palestine is our ever-memorable
historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our
people with a force of marvellous potency. If His Majesty the
Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake
to regulate the whole finances of Turkey. We should there form
a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of
civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral
State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to
guarantee our existence. The sanctuaries of Christendom would
be safeguarded by assigning to them an extra-territorial
status such as is well-known to the law of nations.
[Page 96]
Zionism was a
heterodox notion for Jews and even though he intended moving to
the new state to be voluntary it was not instantly popular in
the Jewish community at all. Herzl had to deal with multiple
impediments in tradition such as Jewish culture being tethered
to the dead past. The entrepreneurial spirit was active but the
pioneering spirit lacking.
We have cradles, we have graves, and
we alone know how Jewish hearts cling to the graves. Our
cradles we shall carry with us—they hold our future, rosy and
smiling. Our beloved graves we must abandon— and I think this
abandonment will cost us more than any other sacrifice. But it
must be so. [Page 123]
Herzl thought that land for the Jews
could be gained through legal agreement, but then he was living
in the age of Empires where Sultans and Kings made decisions by
fiat.
But the Jews, once settled in their
own State, would probably have no more enemies. [Page
153]
Nor did Herzl seem
to think democracy would be desirable for the new Jewish state.
A democracy without a sovereign's
useful counterpoise is extreme in appreciation and
condemnation, tends to idle discussion in Parliaments, and
produces that objectionable class of men—professional
politicians. Nations are also really not fit for unlimited
democracy at present, and will become less and less fitted for
it in the future. For a pure democracy presupposes a
predominance of simple customs, and our customs become daily
more complex with the growth of commerce and increase of
culture. [Page 144]
The Jewish State
is an interesting visionary document that served to motivate
many people to establish the state of Israel but it seems so
distant from the actual events that lead to the formation of
Israel that it’s difficult to know how much weight of importance
to put into it beyond that.
The state of
Israel’s trouble really boils down to the land that was needed
to start it and the deals that were made to gain it. Although
various regions of the world had been seriously discussed for a
Jewish homeland the religious argument for Palestine was the
easiest to sell to the Jewish community. After World War I the
Ottoman Empire lost and subsequently collapsed with the British
Empire taking control over Palestine. Influential Jews offered
their support for the British Empire from their community in
return for giving them Palestine, i.e. the Balfour agreement.
The existing population in Palestine was not consulted on this
deal and this is where the now infamous conflict in the Middle
East begins. Very few Jews actually lived in Palestine before
the Balfour Agreement and the ones that did were culturally very
different from the Jews spread across Europe. Jews from Europe
began to move into Palestine and establish themselves with the
absolute religious belief that they and they alone had the right
to the land. Consequently the real Zionism that built the state
of Israel was revealed during the infamous forcible expulsion of
the remaining Arab population of Palestine in 1948.
The obvious problem
with Zionism, as is obvious today, is that by using religious
justification to seize Palestine, what was a potentially secular
Zionism was mortally undermined by Jewish religious beliefs. So
while the state of Israel was hypothetically (but not in
actuality) better glued together by a shared faith, in fact it
instantly created widespread animosity through its formation
based on the theft of land. This fact demonstrates one of the
fundamental flaws in anti-Semitism: it’s not who the Jews
are that generates the animosity, it’s what they do.
Anti-Semitism is a very dangerous delusion for Jews to maintain
because of the self-righteous way it so neatly absolves the Jews
of all blame for any and all actions. The standard Jewish
conception of anti-Semitism maintains that they, the gentiles,
hate us by their very nature so it doesn’t matter what Jews do
or don’t do. Few things are more pernicious than self-righteous
delusion, and an uncritical belief in religious superiority
offers this up in unlimited amounts.
Although he was not
referring to Israel, the Jewish state has became what Herzl
wrote about concerning despotism: The
mere preservation of obsolete institutions is a task severe
enough to require the enforcement of all the despotic measures
of an autocratically governed State. [Page 88]
Source: The
Jewish State by Theodor Herzl, Dover Publications, 1988.
Book review: Religion
Explained
Religion Explained – The Evolutionary Origins
of Religious Thought, by Pascal Boyer, 2001, Basic Books.
The author maintains that the true reasons for why religion is
around are more complex and counter-intuitive than most people
assume, hence the 300+ pages book. Basically the author is
trying to do a Richard Dawkins’s Selfish Gene masterpiece
for religion but as seen through the lens of an anthropologist
and social scientist. Pascal Boyer's main hypothesis, and he has
a substantial and often counterintuitive argument to back it up,
is that religious beliefs and practices are a byproduct of the
way the human brain processes and attempts to explain perceived
events.
Religious
concepts are particularly successful because people represent
them in a way that makes use of capacities they have anyway. At
the beginning of this book, I mentioned that religious concepts
are parasitic upon intuitive ontology. If you have all the
inference systems that are found in a normal human brain, then
some concepts become particularly easy to represent and will
generate all sorts of salient inferences. This is what makes a
floating island or a bleeding statue or a talking tree likely to
have some cultural success.
[Page 202]
Religion Explained is an extensive work
that makes use of anthropological examples and an analysis of
how the mind develops and thinks in order to explain the origin
and function of religious beliefs and practices. Perhaps the
best way to review is to list what we do know and note what’s
still left out.
1. First of all we know, as we should have been
able to see even before reading this book with its heavy
emphasis upon comparative anthropological examples, religion is
not factually valid in and of itself because it comes in so many
forms that can be effectively interchanged and replaced. This is
equally true of rituals and similar seemingly arbitrary
manifestations of human culture. The actual social utility of
these things resides in the practice of doing them, for
instance in providing the benefit of enhanced social cohesion
and group identity.
2. The author makes a convincing argument that no
one is more religious than anyone else, i.e. that religion is
not a product of some special region of the brain or even a
weakness within the mind meaning intellectual negligence. Rather
religion, because it can be found around the world, is really a
byproduct of the pattern forming methodology of the human mind
that has evolved over thousands of years of interacting with the
natural environment. Religious beliefs are like a mistaken
judgment, a misperception of cause and effect, events and
forces.
Our
evolution as a species of cooperators is sufficient to explain
the actual psychology of moral reasoning, the way children and
adults represent moral dimensions of action. But then this
requires no special concept of religious agent, no special code,
no models to follow. However, once you have concepts of
supernatural agents with strategic information, these are made
more salient and relevant by the fact that you can easily insert
them in moral reasoning that would be there in any case. To some
extent religious concepts are parasitic upon moral intuitions.
[Page 191]
Religious beliefs are a byproduct of the pattern
forming methodology of the human mind.
3. Morality is not a result of religious beliefs
but is actually the other way around; religion is an expression
of inborn moral concepts. Unfortunately at this point the author
moves on without addressing the implications of universal moral
concepts. This is a glaring weakness especially from the pen of
a self-described social scientist.
The study of the social mind by
anthropologists, evolutionary biologists and psychologists gives
us a new perspective on the connections between religion and
social life. Consider morality. In some places people say that
the gods laid down the rules people live by. In other places the
gods or ancestors simply watch people and sanction their
misdemeanors. In both cases people make a connection between
moral understandings (intuitions, feelings and reasoning about
what is ethical and what is not) and supernatural agents (gods,
ancestors, spirits). It now seems clear that Voltaire's
account—a god is convenient: people will fear him and behave—got
things diametrically wrong. Having concepts of gods and spirits
does not really make moral rules more compelling but it
sometimes makes them more intelligible. So we do not have gods
because that makes society function. We have gods in part
because we have the mental equipment that makes society possible
but we cannot always understand how society functions.
[Page 28]
It still takes more than what the author uses to
explain some elements of religion. One element is the ego, the
sense of self-awareness extended outward into the realm of
others. Religion clearly contains a significant element of ego
expression because it tries to answer the question of why events
happen to me personally. Events and forces within the mystical
religious realm are always personalized.
This leads us to a second explanation for the fact that people
explain so many events in terms of supernatural causes. The idea
is this: some events are such that they naturally suggest
questions (Why me? Why now?) that are simply not answered in
terms of ordinary causal processes. That is, people who do all
this know perfectly well that disease strikes most people at
some point or that mud huts will eventually collapse in a
termite-infested village. No one could be unaware of these
general principles. But general principles are just
that—general. That is their weakness. They have nothing to say
about particular cases. People are understandably concerned with
the particulars of each case, not its general aspects. Hence the
value of supernatural explanations, which are relevant to the
particulars of the situation.
[Page 196-197]
But it’s skipping a step, it's a mistaken
question to answer. The issue seems like ego displacement at
best, or paranoia perhaps. Why would one think the action of
random events to be not only malicious and intentional but also
aimed directly at oneself? Why and how the leap?
Pascal Boyer brings
up an interesting point, although he doesn’t address it in this
manner, it seems clear that one should not participate in the
rituals of those they don’t approve of or wish to be associated
with:
Rituals do not create social effects but
only the illusion that they do. When people perform rituals,
they combine some ritual gadget—easily acquired because it
activates our precaution-contagion system— and a particular
social effect—for which they have intuitions but no good
concepts—in a single package. Thoughts about the social effect
and thoughts about the ritual sequence are combined since they
are about the same event. So rituals are naturally thought to
produce the social effects.
This illusion is strengthened by the fact that not performing a
particular ceremony, when others do, very often amounts to
defecting from social cooperation. For instance, once you attach
a particular ritual (initiation) to full cooperation between
men, or another one (wedding) to mate-choice, then not
performing the ritual amounts to a refusal to enter into the
same social arrangements as other people. In a place where
everybody signals their openness and reliability by keeping
their windows open, drawing your curtains is a clear signal of
non-cooperation. So the illusion that the ritual is actually
indispensable to its effects, although untrue if you consider
human societies in general, becomes quite real for the people
concerned, as their choice is between going through the actions
prescribed—which seems to con firm that the rituals are a sine
qua non—or defecting from cooperation with other members of the
group, which is not really an option in most human groups.
[Page 255]
Another missing fact
is that isolated people have no examples with which to refute
established beliefs! What about cultural context that builds the
substrate for beliefs in the first place? People will go through
any routine no matter how ridiculous it is when they have no
other knowledge or examples to compare to.
After
reading Religion Explained I feel like the author
explained how an engine works but didn't discuss what the
vehicle is that uses the engine. Is that meant to be a topic
left up to the reader to analyze, a second volume perhaps, or
just a topic the author is intentionally avoiding?
Nevertheless, Religion Explained is a fascinating book
and certainly well worth reading. No book is perfect but even
with some of the weaknesses this one has, in this case, they
should at least lead the reader to start asking more questions
and thinking of ways to build upon the bright ideas and
interpretations that Pascal Boyer presents to us. 09.07.06
Manufacturing Armageddon
Usually the graphic is made after the text is written to enhance
the conceptual understanding of the essay but in this case it
was done the other way around with the image first and the text
last. So to begin with c lick
on this image to the right to read it. The title is
Achieving Total
Dominance of the Information Battlesphere,
an unlikely string of words
that
serves as an example of typical Air Force jargon-speak, meaning:
give us a few hundred billion more dollars and well conquer the
universe in ten years.
Multiple elements of American society are being
criticized in this art-graphic. The blatant, inconsistent, and
arbitrary censorship of the content of an open news source is
meant to highlight the ‘we’ll censor the facts because we can’
attitude on the part of authorities and the complicity of
mainstream media in the charade, their quickness to roll-over
when ever government or special interests complain. In this case
the source text is from an actual New York Times article
that was simply too outrageous to just toss it back into the
memory hole without getting some more use out of it. Now, the
source here is a NYT article, but it could just as easily be
Newsweek and the recent blurb in their magazine conveying
allegations of Koran abuse by officials at the concentration
camp in
Guantanamo Bay. Although the story of abuse of the Koran
by officials was
conceptually correct, Newsweek still retracted the article after
massive pressure from the White House and a source that changed
his mind afterwards.
This
graphic is also a vignette of the effort that military and
partisan government institutions will exert just to warp and
spin objective events to fit their transitory agenda. The real
threat to the collective well being of American’s doesn’t come
from a handful of terrorists, it comes from a runaway military
and defense industry colluding with federal policy-makers and a
mass-media that is tasked with accurately informing the public
but is really only concerned with quick profits.
But pausing for a moment, let’s look back and try to figure
out just how we got into this mess in the first place. How did the
free, pluralistic and open society of the United States turn into an
empire that seeks to dominate earth, space and everything in
between for interests of ‘national security’, whatever that
really means? First we need to get inside the mindset that
characterizes the motivation and direction that Empire America
is headed in. The Vietnam ‘war’ is an apt place to start. The
political and social conservative mindset, so prevalent inside
the military, really believe that America lost the conflict in
Vietnam because the mass media, composed of “liberals”, reported
all the terrible things that were actually going on and
subsequently turned the majority of American public opinion away
from support of continued direct involvement in Southeast Asia.
No, in this view they didn’t lose because they were propping up
a succession of wholly corrupt and brutal puppet regimes in
South Vietnam, they didn’t lose because combat operations were
consistently killing, maiming and alienating Vietnamese and
world opinion, and they didn’t lose the conflict in Southeast
Asia because of the continual tactics of brutality and illegal
strategic actions, such as the bombing of Cambodia. No, this
conservative view of historical events believes that America
lost the (undeclared) war in Vietnam because Americans saw bad
things happen on their TV screens every evening. The black and
white mindset of the conservatives disregards the fact that,
yes, these bad things actually did occur in Vietnam, but
that's not important because brutality is an integral part of
war and war is good because in the case of Vietnam it was to
defeat ‘godless’ Communists. Vietnam was a good war because,
just like World War II, it was fought to defeat pagans, atheists
and other non-Christians. Similar, the current war in Iraq is
another good war because it is being waged against Muslims and
non-believers in Jesus as well as to support Jews in Israel who
share a belief in the Old Testament of the Bible. Of course this
chain of thought and set of beliefs is total garbage, riddled
with ignorance, flawed assumptions, and flagrant logical errors
but again, it doesn’t matter to them because they can’t see
themselves and there is no internal criticism in belief.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam fiasco the United
States military had basically collapsed internally with morale
in the toilet and a public that had lost its enthusiasm for
large-scale conflict, nor did they have any remaining desire to
be conscripted into active duty service. As the military was
rebuilt into a volunteer force the Christian conservatives
exploited the opportunity to integrate their beliefs into the
culture of the new military, and they succeeded to the point
that now soldiers pray together in groups under the lead of a
General or commanding officer before heading into combat or a
mission and the Air Force Academy is so rife with Christian
fundamentalists that they are currently being sued for
discrimination. [1] Ironically, the all volunteer military means
that the active character and consequent culture of the
institution lacks a necessary element of social and economic
diversity necessary for preventing the rise of a dominant
monoculture that can wield undue influence out or proportion to
the wider national population and its views, beliefs and
opinions.
Along with altering the culture of the military
a major push was made to tightly control the flow of information
in subsequent conflicts and prevent the leak of images and facts
deemed harmful to the continuation of another brutal conflict
overseas.
This task has two main arms. The first arm is the use of what’s
called psychological warfare to spread the propaganda message
that the Executive branch and the military commanders want the
public to hear both at home and on the battlefield. The second
arm is the direct control of public media. The culmination of
this policy can be seen today with embedded news reporters in
Iraq, which serve as virtually the sole source of domestic
American information on the course of the conflict on the
ground.
The tight control of information coupled with the
cultural shift towards Christian fundamentalism in the military
is clearly evident in the current war on Iraq lead by George W.
Bush, a ‘born-again’ Christian, in conjunction with the
Christian conservatives so influential in the United States
military. But also backed by a considerable portion of the
American public that shares the belief in the noble quality of a
religious war in 'Middle East' i.e. West Asia. And if that
wasn’t dangerous enough, the same Christian Fundamentalists also
believe, as they interpret the Biblical book of Revelation,
that Iraq is the Babylon mentioned in that book, that Armageddon
is at hand and that this final battle will usher in the second
coming of Jesus and ‘rapture’ all the ‘born-again’ Christian
believers up to heaven while the ‘anti-Christ’ takes over back
on Earth! Yes, the same people that control thousands of live
nuclear warheads on land, sea and air-based missiles believe
that an Armageddon conflict will result in their hasty ascension
to heaven so they can be with Jesus!
If this sounds too outrageous to be taken
seriously, hold on because it gets better. Not long ago a brief
flurry of concern erupted over the speeches to
church groups
(in military uniform) given by
Lieutenant General William Boykin, stating things like: "Our
enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are a nation of believers
… His name is Satan." and “Why is
this man [President W. Bush] in the White House? The majority of
Americans did not vote for him. He's in the White House because
God put him there for a time such as this."
[2] Well readers, by now you should know that making
inflammatory religious statements like that won’t get you fired
in the Bush administration, but it may well get you promoted. So
guess what? General Boykin is still around and busier than ever
having traveled from
Delta Force to the Joint Special Operations Command via the CIA,
to
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for
Intelligence. [3]
Do we really want to be giving these people even
more billions of dollars? Do we really want them to have
space-based weapons that can obliterate any spot on the planet
in 15 minutes? Do we want people in positions of immense
authority, and responsibility who are convinced that ‘our’ God
is greater than ‘their’ God, and who believe with all their
heart and soul that America is a Christian nation to the
exclusion of everyone who isn’t, a Christian empire, a light
unto the world whose mission is to spread the gospel of Jesus
with a Bible or a bomb, and a nation that can do no wrong
because it is divinely sanctioned by God? Are they really
working to improve national security or are they actually
destabilizing international relations and making the world a
more dangerous place all the while blinded by religious zeal?
If the answer to any of those questions is no
then America and the entire world is faced with a very
serious problem: delusional maniacs with the zealous belief
in an impending Armageddon have taken control of the most
powerful and destructive military machine in world history.
1)
Christian fundamentalist bigotry reigns at US Air Force
Academy,
by Patrick Martin, WSWS, April 30, 2005
2)
God put Bush in charge, says the general hunting bin Laden,
by
David Rennie,
The Telegraph, October 17, 2003.
3)Thank
God for General Boykin,
by Tony Blankley, October 22, 2003.
The I’m Not Worthy
Syndrome
The Catholic Church has used
various tricks to emotionally exploit the flock for centuries
but not always in the same way, most notable is the use of
specific imagery to generate the desired reaction in the public. Before around 1400 the
primary aim was to convey the basic stories and allegories of
the Bible to an illiterate public. The art was mostly flat and
two-dimensional, fairly sterile as far as emotion; it was just the basic
storylines, enough for the public to get the message. But |