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No. There are a lot of people who agree. I don't know if you ever watch
Democracy Now on public access TV but a lot of thinking there is similar.
What Bush has done is select his target based on where his arrow hits.
The irony of the super corporation is that it has become so successful that
it can produce more than society demands and by cutting back on jobs, it is
cannibalizing its consumer base. It is building up the cities [to become city
states again?] while the nation state and its subdivisions [we call them states
here] are decaying. A lot of folks will get hurt in the process, but like the
dinosaur, its total dominance will lead to its downfall.
Bill
Gee, is it because we are both from the cloisters
and not out in the real world that I agree with this lady?
REH
Published on Thursday, May 29, 2003
by the National Catholic Reporter
<http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/>
Is there
anything left that matters?
by Joan Chittister, OSB
This is what I
don't understand: All of a sudden nothing seems to matter.
First, they
said they wanted Bin Laden "dead or alive." But they didn't get him. So now
they tell us that it doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man.
Then they said they wanted Saddam Hussein, "dead or alive." He's
apparently alive but we haven't got him yet, either. However, President Bush
told reporters recently, "It doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one
man."
Finally, they told us that we were invading Iraq to destroy
their weapons of mass destruction. Now they say those weapons probably don't
exist. Maybe never existed. Apparently that doesn't matter either.
Except that it does matter.
I know we're not supposed to say
that. I know it's called "unpatriotic."
But it's also called honesty.
And dishonesty matters.
It matters that the infrastructure of a
foreign nation that couldn't defend itself against us has been destroyed on
the grounds that it was a military threat to the world.
It matters
that it was destroyed by us under a new doctrine of "pre-emptive war" when
there was apparently nothing worth pre-empting.
It surely matters to
the families here whose sons went to war to make the world safe from weapons
of mass destruction and will never come home.
It matters to families
in the United States whose life support programs were ended, whose medical
insurance ran out, whose food stamps were cut off, whose day care programs
were eliminated so we could spend the money on sending an army to do what did
not need to be done.
It matters to the Iraqi girl whose face was
burned by a lamp that toppled over as a result of a U.S. bombing run.
It matters to Ali, the Iraqi boy who lost his family - and both his
arms - in a U.S. air attack.
It matters to the people in Baghdad whose
water supply is now fetid, whose electricity is gone, whose streets are
unsafe, whose 158 government ministries' buildings and all their records have
been destroyed, whose cultural heritage and social system has been looted and
whose cities teem with anti-American protests.
It matters that the
people we say we "liberated" do not feel liberated in the midst of the
lawlessness, destruction and wholesale social suffering that so-called
liberation created.
It matters to the United Nations whose integrity
was impugned, whose authority was denied, whose inspection teams are even now
still being overlooked in the process of technical evaluation and disarmament.
It matters to the reputation of the United States in the eyes of the
world, both now and for decades to come, perhaps.
And surely it
matters to the integrity of this nation whether or not its intelligence
gathering agencies have any real intelligence or not before we launch a
military armada on its say-so.
And it should matter whether or not our
government is either incompetent and didn't know what they were doing or were
dishonest and refused to say. The unspoken truth is that either as a people we
were misled, or we were lied to, about the real reason for this war. Either we
made a huge - and unforgivable - mistake, an arrogant or ignorant mistake, or
we are swaggering around the world like a blind giant, flailing in all
directions while the rest of the world watches in horror or in ridicule.
If Bill Clinton's definition of "is" matters, surely this matters. If
a president's sex life matters, surely a president's use of global force
against some of the weakest people in the world matters. If a president's word
in a court of law about a private indiscretion matters, surely a president's
word to the community of nations and the security of millions of people
matters.
And if not, why not? If not, surely there is something as
wrong with us as citizens, as thinkers, as Christians as there must be with
some facet of the government. If wars that the public says are wrong yesterday
- as over 70% of U.S. citizens did before the attack on Iraq - suddenly become
"right" the minute the first bombs drop, what kind of national morality is
that?
Of what are we really capable as a nation if the considered
judgment of politicians and people around the world means nothing to us as a
people?
What is the depth of the American soul if we can allow
destruction to be done in our name and the name of "liberation" and never even
demand an accounting of its costs, both personal and public, when it is over?
We like to take comfort in the notion that people make a distinction
between our government and ourselves. We like to say that the people of the
world love Americans, they simply mistrust our government. But excoriating a
distant and anonymous "government" for wreaking rubble on a nation in pretense
of good requires very little of either character or intelligence.
What
may count most, however, is that we may well be the ones Proverbs warns when
it reminds us: "Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value the one who
speaks the truth." The point is clear: If the people speak and the king
doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the king. If the king acts
precipitously and the people say nothing, something is wrong with the people.
It may be time for us to realize that in a country that prides itself
on being democratic, we are our government. And the rest of the world is
figuring that out very quickly.
>From where I stand, that matters.
A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Sister Joan is a best-selling author
and well- known international lecturer. She is founder and executive director
of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality
<http://www.benetvision.org/> , and past president of the Conference of
American Benedictine Prioresses and the Leadership Conference of Women
Religious. Sister Joan has been recognized by universities and national
organizations for her work for justice, peace and equality for women in the
Church and society. She is an active member of the International Peace
Council.
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