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That's OK I'll just shrub it.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 3:14
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Cloistered or
not?
I
give up. I am bushed out thinking up bush repartee.
Or she is beating the Bush
directly.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 3:02
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Cloistered
or not?
She clearly has stopped beating around the
bush.
Arthur,
Maybe she's decided to come out of the
Hiding Bushes.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003
2:48 PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework]
Cloistered or not?
This is significant. This is part of the Bush
base.
arthur
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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