CHURCH: What are we in the middle of?

I have been doing a lot of thinking about church life in the US - particularly about church life in mainline protestant denominations like the one I belong to, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Almost every church-related activity I participate in stirs up memories. I think particularly of going to a Lutheran church in Summit, NJ, in the '60s and '70s.

Part of me measures today's church experiences against the yardstick of church during those growing-up years*. (*About a half a century ago. Yikes.)

Another part of me finds joy in today's church experiences for their own sake -- and even in the feeling that we might actually be creating a new thing together.


What are we in the middle of?

Sadao Watanabe, The Last Supper

I've started to wonder what "my" church -- the denomination I'm affiliated with -- will be like in ten years. It startles me to realize that the answer probably ought to have less to do with my "growing-up years" idea of church, and more to do with some newly-created thing.

I wonder about worship in new ways . . . and fellowship in new ways . . . and faith formation in new ways . . . and social justice in new ways . . . and evangelism in new ways . . . . Before long I realize that, in my imagination, I'm really just recycling a bunch of old ideas, perhaps with a bit of current affairs and/or exotic flair added.

Then it occurs to me that what church does is respond to life. So the answer to the question, "What will the newly-created thing be?" has something to do with the answer to the question, "What are we in the middle of?"

Put another way: the opportunity for the denomination lies in engaging with what our society is experiencing.  The more widespread, difficult, and amorphous that phenomenon is, the greater the likelihood that "it" is what church needs to engage with.


Centrifugal force: economic inequality

Sadao Watanabe, Lilies of the Field

My sense is that the growing economic inequality in US (and other) society is where church will find its calling more and more with each passing month and year.

A few notes:

* Economic inequality is readily apparent to a certain degree -- we care about "poverty" -- but is enormously underestimated by most people, and poorly understood by almost everybody. There was a small splash made in the last year or two on the subject of the growing (and structurally irremediable?) economic inequality in Western societies by Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Bernie Sanders' 2016 Democratic primary candidacy got some traction on the topic of economic inequality.

* Church communities are already inherently involved in dealing with economic equality hands-on, i.e. within congregations themselves. And yet there is almost limitless possibility to do new things in this dimension.

* Church communities are also involved in addressing economic inequality, through service and advocacy, beyond their own walls. Again, there is enormous scope to do new things in this dimension, as well.

The opportunity lies in the existence of a widespread/difficult/amorphous phenomenon which so far shows no signs of yielding to known approaches. It is tempting to see an analogy to the early Church, when the widespread/difficult/amorphous phenomenon was called the Roman Empire, and something new had to be created because the obvious approaches were not getting people anywhere.


Can church succeed?

Sadao Watanabe, Miracle of Loaves and Fishes

If we set our sights on something we already know church can succeed at, we're probably not thinking big enough. We will know we are considering the appropriate phenomenon when we realize, "This may not work."

Here's what I will be thinking about in the coming year:

* How does the Gospel witness equip church to respond to economic inequality that is massive and growing rapidly?

* What strengths and gifts do we, as church, have at our disposal as we face it?

* What might we, as church, be willing to give up in order to get it right?

* What's standing in our way?

It may not be possible to envision exactly what church will be like ten years from now. But it does seem likely that the broad outlines are close at hand, if we are willing to reach for them.


MORE:
2017: Which Way for the Church? Anti-Racism? or Comfort?
Declaring Sanctuary, Changing Hearts and Minds
DECOLONIZE THIS: The ELCA's Doctrine of Discovery Challenge
KAIROS: The Moment You've Been Waiting For?


Please share this post . . . .

Connect the Dots: Obama Drones Threat Capital Inequality

By perpetuating the idea that we live under threat of terrorism, and that drones are the answer, Obama has guaranteed the economic inequality engine will continue to function unimpeded for a very long time to come . . . .

"Obama's embrace of drone strikes will be a lasting legacy."
(Graphic: @pariewolf)

Barack Obama is scheduled to give his farewell speech in Chicago on January 10, 2017.

Over the past six years, I have written again and again about the expansion of drone killings under Obama. The graphic above reminded me that I should not let the occasion of Obama's "legacy" speech pass without saying what his real legacy will be.

As Mark Landler explained in The New York Times this past summer, Obama's legacy really does seem to be the use of military force by the US around the world in an uninterrupted way, while still operating beneath the notice of the vast majority of US people.

The use of drones perfectly encapsulates the Obama legacy: as long as you keep boots off the ground, you can assert US military power anywhere and everywhere without alarming the public. If a few spoilsports object, you can point out that drones are limited, cost-effective, high-tech. (And did we mention there are no boots on the ground?)

As someone who has called written about this phenomenon as "permawar" . . . and worked with drone warfare opponents throughout the country . . . and even tried revoking Obama's Nobel Prize . . . I enjoy a kind of satisfaction in seeing other voices affirm my reading of the situation.

 . . . HOWEVER . . .

I've come to the conclusion that it is not enough to simply protest drone warfare.

We need to connect the dots between this new way of war and the economic crisis that has brought Donald Trump to power.


Inequality: "Where's Mine?"

WHERE'S MINE? Inequality in the US
and the Military-Industrial Complex

About a year ago, I took a stab at connecting the problem of inequality in the US to the problem of military spending and war.

I shared data on the real extent of economic inequality in the US, and noted that this information is widely available. "I'm wondering when people are going to decide to do something about it," I wrote, "and when they're going to begin to ask about the connections between inequality and the military-industrial complex."

I think we got the answer to the first half of my query with the election of Donald Trump.


How US Military Spending Contributes to Economic Inequality

US government spending:
military vs "all other"
(More details here.)

To many of us, it seems obvious that the connection between the enormous levels of US military spending and economic inequality is that tax money is used for war instead of to make the lives of people in the US better. ("Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation.")

As a very loyal but honest critic of the antiwar movement has said, "We just can't seem to get any traction with the money argument for opposing war."

We're not getting traction with the simple argument -- "Stop spending so much money!" -- and we're also not getting traction with the more sweeping argument that takes the form of a critique of "Neoliberalism."

In my opinion, the former argument fails because it is too simplistic: it's just too difficult for people to detach their idea of today's military spending from the idea of the "Good War" and the "arsenal of democracy" -- the notion of "security" validated for them by WWII. They know just enough about today's regional conflicts and militant activities -- i.e. the warlike ways of "those people" and their resort to "terrorism," but nothing about the role of the US and other countries in fomenting same -- to reinforce the idea that military spending is unavoidable. In-district military spending (jobs) seals the deal.

(Put another way: Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex is too abstract to be helpful.)

The latter argument -- the critique of Neoliberalism -- is, in contrast, too wide-ranging and diffuse. At its core, it plays into exactly the psychology that perpetuates inequality, even in the face of grotesque inequities: people hear "freedom of opportunity" and they imagine it means "freedom of opportunity" for ordinary people. They imagine themselves, and people like themselves, getting a break.

No, we need a different argument.

Ideally, something with a conspiratorial edge to it.


Stacking the Deck

In my "Where's Mine?" post, I alluded to the work of Thomas Piketty. But it wasn't until I read Joseph Stiglitz's gloss on Piketty in his book The Great Divide that I was able to connect the dots.

Stiglitz explains that what Piketty is pointing out is that the 1% keeps getting richer and richer because something's out of whack. The wealth that they invest is able to keep earning super high returns, despite the normal expectation that, at some point, returns weaken. In particular, they have the ability to keep pumping money into emerging, high-growth economies, which will pay a higher return on capital, compared to older, low-growth, stable economies (read: the US).

Net Capital Flows to Emerging-Market Economies (1980-2015)
(Source: Advisor Perspectives)

(As the graph above shows, the past few years have seen phenomenally high levels of capital flow into emerging markets.)

Stiglitz says this can't go on indefinitely, but by the time it peters out, there is likely to be extreme inequality globally -- i.e. much worse than there is now.

What Stiglitz doesn't explain is this: what has prevented the market from correcting this situation?

In particular, I wondered about the risk of investing in those emerging markets. Having spent a large part of my career doing business in China (and other parts of Asia), I have always been very focused on the degree to which investments are put at risk by the absence of good information in those societies. (It has often seemed to me that there is a bubble in China, supported by perception that the overall market is growing so fast that the inability to monitor the true performance of individual investments is a minor concern.)

Stiglitz gives a clue that we should be looking in a different direction. He invites us to think about "rents." This refers to the idea of sources of assured returns -- think of an oil well or music royalties -- where the underlying asset is not involved in a complicated, risky operation like manufacturing or providing a service.

I think the answer to how the rate of return on capital all around the world can continue to remain high, despite the expectations of market theory, is that capital is able, in effect, to find unnatural ways to shield it from risk in those "other" countries. The returns are more like "rents" than they are like "dividends."

Moreover, I think the most important "unnatural way" involves the threat of military force to protect capital -- i.e. the investments of the 1% from the US (and the rest of the West).

"America's most elite troops deployed to 138 nations in 2016 . . . ."
(Source: Nick Turse in Truthout)

Conveniently, Nick Turse just published a piece with the updated map above of elite troops deployments and US military installations around the world.

To complete the picture, all you need to do is think about the fact that the places in-between are all covered (or coverable) by drone flights.

This picture is not keeping the world safe for democracy; it's keeping the world safe for capital.


Really?

As someone who has grown up in the US, it is not automatically possible for me to understand that the presence of US military forces around the world necessarily translates into the message: "No US financial losses allowed here." Do people in foreign countries really think that accepting US investment means they have to guarantee the returns of those US people? Shouldn't foreign investors have to face normal financial risk, just like everyone else?

By coincidence, I noticed a reference the other day by Howard Zinn to "Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad." A few of the examples Zinn cites:

1853-1854 - Japan. Commodore Matthew C. Perry and his naval expedition made a display of force leading to the “opening of Japan."

1859 - China. July 3 I to August 2. A naval force landed to protect American interests in Shanghai.

1860 - Angola, Portuguese West Africa. March I . American residents at Kissembo called upon American and British ships to protect lives and property during problems with natives.

1893 - Hawaii. January 16 to April 1. Marines were landed ostensibly to protect American lives and property, but many believed actually to promote a provisional government under Sanford B. Dole. This action was disavowed by the United States.

And the list continues . . .

1912 - Honduras. A small force landed to prevent seizure by the government of an American-owned railroad at Puerto Cortez. The forces were withdrawn after the United States disapproved the action.

1917-1922 - Cuba. U.S. forces protected American interests during an insurrection and subsequent unsettled conditions. . . .

1922 - Turkey. September and October. A landing force was sent ashore with consent of both Greek and Turkish authorities to protect American lives and property when the Turkish Nationalists entered Smyrna.

1965 - Dominican Republic. The United States intervened to protect lives and property during a Dominican revolt and sent more troops as fears grew that the revolutionary forces were coming increasingly under Communist control.

1988 Panama. In mid-March and April 1988, during a period of instability in Panama and as pressure grew for Panamanian military leader General Manuel Noriega to resign, the United States sent 1 ,000 troops to Panama, to “further safeguard the canal, U.S. lives, property and interests in the area.” The forces supplemented 1 0,000 U.S. military personnel already in Panama.

Don't take it from me. The official US history says that the US military intervenes again and again and again to protect US capital. ("Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2015" by the Congressional Record Service.) And that doesn't include CIA operations (e.g. 1953: Iraq, oil; 1961, Cuba; 1980s: Central America) or much of the post-WWII intervention in the name of "fighting Communism" (Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), "humanitarian" purposes, or for fighting "terrorism" (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen) and "weapons of mass destruction" (2013: Iraq, oil).

Its easy to see why countries around the world understand that using the capital proffered from the US comes with a proviso: "You will guarantee that this cash injection brings nothing but upside. We expect rents in perpetuity."


Connecting the Dots: Obama - Drones - Threat - Capital - Inequality

I propose that the global movement against war should celebrate the departure of Barack Obama.

We should seize upon the recognition that the economic inequality that vast numbers of people in the US are angry about stems directly from the way the US military is used. (Including, in its newest form, the move toward drone warfare.)

If We the People have any gumption, we will see that the very reason we are becoming more and more impoverished, while the super-rich get richer and richer, is that our taxes are being used to stack the deck for the rich.

That giant sucking sound? It's the investment dollars that we need to refresh our productive economy fleeing to "rents" in distant parts of the world. And OUR tax dollars are paying for the military that guarantees the economic inequality engine will continue to function unimpeded for a very long time to come.


Please share this post . . .

Gender Equity and Peace: Let's ALL have a say in conflict resolution

What does gender have to do with war and peace? Old view: "men are from Mars, women are from Venus." New view: it's about equity.

The UN International Day for Peace 2016 has been tied to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Gender Equality is goal #5.

When I was a young adult, a popular book was Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex. It encouraged people to accept different styles of interaction it recognized in men and women. Since men were inherently "competitive, individualistic, not into 'caring and sharing,' wanting to be admired for their ability to hang tough and deliver the goods yet unwilling to communicate the fact they need admiration" and women inherently "craving respect from their men, looking for emotional bells and whistles and not so much material status symbols as their men might suppose, prone to cycles of emotional fatigue and dependent on their mates to cherish them" (so the theory went, as summarized by one Amazon reviewer), the way for everyone to get along best is to accept the world as it is and try a little harder to speak each other's language.

This view of two starkly different "sexes" ends up reinforcing a common view about war and peace: it's the guys who are responsible for war -- they can't help themselves, it's biological -- and it's the women who make good peace activists -- because, you know, they're more peaceful.

Boys fight wars, girls heal. (Right?)
(Florence Nightingale -- Natl Lib of Medicine image)

I confess to reaching, myself, for the convenient and comforting idea that women are civilization's great, reliable backstop against the looming destruction of human society via wars cooked up by men. According to this rather magical line of thinking, women's biology provides a kind of guaranteed reservoir of peace elixir, which will surely prevail once unleashed.


But gender is a social construct . . . .

In large part due to the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the movement for LGBTQ justice, I have begun to understand the ways in which categories like race and gender are social constructs, i.e. they function principally to bestow or deny power.

I've come to understand that gender cannot be understood just on the basis of body morphology or biochemistry. A big part of gender -- and a part that is of enormous consequence for conflict and cooperation -- is socially constructed. How we treat each other when we're together has overwhelming importance to this thing called gender.

Walt Whitman, Civil War nurse

Just as focusing on skin pigmentation makes us miss the point that "race" exists to enable some people to claim and maintain privilege, so focusing on estrogen or testosterone makes us miss the point that "gender" exists to enable some people to dominate the conversation and dictate the course of action.


Surprising findings on gender equity

About 18 months ago, I read some startling findings about women and men working together.

Some researchers wanted to know what predictors could be found for teams that were successful at achieving results. To their surprise, they found that the predictors that you might expect -- particularly expertise, past experience, even hard work -- were not the ones that correlated closely with success. Here's what did:

* Successful teams consisted of members who were capable of reading each other's verbal and non-verbal clues, in order to better listen to them.

* The members of successful teams each spoke about an equal amount of the time.

* On average, successful teams had more women.

(See the description of the findings, originally published in Science, in "Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others" by Anita Woolley, Thomas W. Mallone and Christopher F. Chabris)

Hey, it's science!

What I found really exciting is the potential to take these findings and follow them up in our own environments. We're all on committees and teams right? We all attend meetings. So go into a meeting and watch what happens. Who gets to speak? Does one person (or a few people) dominate? Are people listening to each other? Have people heard each other, or do they talk over each other?

And what I discovered when I started to pay attention to how these factors operate in my own environment was that there tended to be a very "gendered" environment in a lot of group settings -- a few people (mostly men) doing all the talking, and the rest (mostly women) unable to get a word in edgewise. I also noticed that the gendered nature of the gatherings would tend to snowball -- once people realized there wouldn't be an equal chance for everyone to be heard, they stopped trying to listen to each other and became anxious to simply get a chance to speak.

I noticed a couple of other things. For one thing, I noticed that the more a given meeting fit this pattern, the more likely people were to leave the meeting and behave as if it had never happened. People would just go their own ways, and do whatever it was they were originally planning to do.

I also noticed that if a small effort was made -- "Hey, let's hear from some of the people who haven't had a chance to speak yet" -- it was actually possible to move the proceedings toward equitable participation. And those tended to be the meetings that had noticeable follow-through.

So when we say conflict resolution and peace may have something to do with gender, maybe what we're really saying is that something different happens when people listen to each other . . . when everyone gets an equal chance to speak . . . and when people who are most likely to be denied a place at the table actually get to participate.


Gender Equity, the SDGs, and Peace

Having a say:
Pray the Devil Back to Hell

I have my doubts about whether every single one of the SDGs is of equal importance in bringing us to a world without war.

(I frankly wonder whether eliminating war isn't a precondition for some of them.)

But there is no question in my mind that gender equity is foundational to moving us closer and closer to a world where conflict is addressed through cooperation and compromise, and not through domination and violence.

In fact, in some ways "gender equity" as I understand it -- "everybody gets about an equal chance to be heard" -- may very well be synonymous with "conflict resolution."



Related posts



It will benefit us antiwar activists in the US to attend to and reflect upon the importance of these Sustainable Development Goals to achieving the goal of ending war.

(See PEACE DAY 2016: What comes first? Demilitarization? or Development?)











In a composition suggestive of a yin-yang symbol, a woman in a burka (but wearing audacious red glitter platform heels) is surrounded by genie-ish tableaus of the many male obsessions/pastimes that some of us rail about frequently -- sexualized pop singers, professional sports -- as well as some that we probably should rail about more (such as patriarchy in religion and political violence).

(See VIOLENCE: " . . . and the women must live with the consequences . . . " )

Women Without Men is a recent movie by the artist Shirin Neshat, based on the novel by Shahrnush Parsipur.. The first time I saw it, at the end I walked straight to the ticket window and bought another ticket and walked right back in and watched it again. The film contains haunting scene after haunting scene, and it makes it clear that Iran is a place where people are able to ask questions about patriarchy and about what it is going to take to overcome it.

(See Women Without Men as a US-Iran Cultural Bridge)

IT'S A LOCK: Why the US Can't Break Its Addiction to War

"Technicians at Poway [CA]-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems
worked on the fuselage of a Sky Warrior drone . . . . The company’s unmanned-
aerial-vehicle program includes the Sky Warrior, the Predator and the Predator B."
(2009 photo - John Gibbins / Union-Tribune)

The new film about the arms trade, Shadow World, screened last night in Berkeley.

There is much that is provocative in the film, and everybody who cares about ending war should see it and share it with others in their community.

In particular, the segment about the Pentagon whistleblower Franklin Spinney caught my attention. Spinney talked about the systemic nature of the problem -- military spending that penetrates every single Congressional district. In effect, we're stuck. To break the hold of war on the US, we need to break the hold of military spending on every Congressional district.

Let's admit it: we've got a problem.

This was reinforced in the discussion following the screening, when Andrew Feinstein -- author of the book on which the film is based -- pointed to the inseparable relationship between campaign funding for Congressional races and the military contractors.

This idea is not new to me. I moved to California last year, fully aware that much of the beautiful California lifestyle is built on weapons manufacturing. The Concise Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick tells us that, between 1951 and 1963, California benefited from $67 billion in defense contracts (p. 218-9). In my own work on the problem of drones, I've come to learn that a relatively new player in defense, General Atomics, has become a star in the San Diego area economy by building Predator and Reaper drones.

Can drone jobs be "good jobs"?

But the question of how to push back against the problem has seemed gargantuan. Four hundred and thirty-five Congressional districts: how to begin?

It occurred to me that I could start by looking into California's 53 Congressional districts. But that alone is a huge job . . . and it's still just one state.

By coincidence, yesterday I was also thinking about another question: the readership of my blog is growing very fast . . . but where is it all headed? What do I hope the outcome is?

And then I realized that what I hope for is actually quite simple: I hope to suggest to people that they can use simple tools like blogs to get important information out to a wider audience.  In effect, these blogs and other social media are our answer to the complaint that the mainstream media doesn't report the important stories, and distorts the stories they do report. We need to be our own media.

Chicago activists are taking on Boeing

None of us has to do the whole job his/her self. We're a swarm.

So here's my promise: I will knuckle down and get to work on those 53 districts in California. And if you're writing about the hold of defense contractors and the Pentagon on those or other districts around the country, share your work with me via Twitter at @scarry. I'll make sure that it gets a big audience.

Posts related to California congressional districts

13th (East Bay): 21st c. Berkeley: More Relevant Than Ever to Antiwar Movement

17th (Silicon Valley): Worldwide War and Conflict (Brought to you by Silicon Valley)



More related posts

There's been a lot of talk in recent weeks and months about the problem of gun trafficking in Illinois, and how we will never meet our goal of stopping the violence in our communities if we can't stop the flow of guns. Maybe it's time for us to eat our own dog food . . . .

(See What If Illinois Became a "War-Profiteer-Free Zone" ? )






How might an uprising against inequality and dismantling the military-industrial complex dovetail?

(See WHERE'S MINE? Inequality in the US and the Military-Industrial Complex )

I've realized that when we ask ourselves, "What is it that we hope people will do?" we must include an element of recursivity: One of the things we want people to do is to involve more people in doing it. In a way, that element of recursivity -- dare I say "evangelism"? -- defines what it means for people to really become part of a movement.

(See Invite More People into Activism! (Pass It Along!) )








 

More than anyone else, the beneficiaries of permawar are the politicians who thrive on the power to make and control wars. The number one prime beneficiary is the President, as well as presidential aspirants. But it doesn't end there . . . .

(See J'ACCUSE: The Beneficiaries of Permawar )

PEACE DAY 2016: What comes first? Demilitarization? or Development?

Sustainable Development Goals

According to the official UN site, this year's #PeaceDay theme is: "Sustainable Development Goals: Building Blocks for Peace."

This caught my attention because of the (close but not total) overlap between the Sustainable Development Goals and the elements of the "Alternative Global Security System" proposed by World Beyond War.

Moreover, in recent weeks, I have been putting more and more effort into interacting with the Twitter streams with peace activists in countries all over the world, and I see a strong interest in the Sustainable Development Goals. 

The Sustainable Development Goals are:

(1) No Poverty
(2) No Hunger
(3) Good Health
(4) Quality Education (See Education for Peace? or "Education IS Peace"?)
(5) Gender Equality (See Gender Equity and Peace: Let's ALL have a say in conflict resolution)
(6) Clean Water and Sanitation
(7) Renewable Energy
(8) Good Jobs and Economic Growth
(9) Innovation and Infrastructure (See SOLAR PANELS: A Force for Peace in Africa?)
(10) Reduced Inequalities
(11) Sustainable Cities/Communities
(12) Responsible Consumption
(13) Climate Action (See Peace Day 2016: 3 Ways Climate Action is Vital)
(14) Life Below Water (See Pacific Fisheries' Futile Conflict: How about sharing?)
(15) Life On Land (See SDG 15 and Peace: "We are but one thread ... ")
(16) Peace and Justice (See SDGs: Does US Militarism Harm "Peace and Justice" (and Other) Efforts?)
(17) Partnerships for the Goals

My hypothesis is that it will benefit us antiwar activists in the US to attend to and reflect upon the importance of these Sustainable Development Goals to achieving the goal of ending war.

Goal #10 -- reduced inequalities -- is one I've already made some effort to think about -- but I need to go deeper.

Moreover, I plan to spend time each week between now and September looking closely at each of the specific goals, and inviting comment on how they might fit into a unified global effort to put a stop to armed conflict and move toward peaceful development for everyone.


Related posts

In 2015, the UN International Day of Peace on September 21 nudged me to think about what -- if anything -- I feel I really know about peace and the movement for peace. Here are 10 things that are true for me . . . .

(See #PeaceDay 2015 - Ten Thoughts on Peace)







How might an uprising against inequality and dismantling the military-industrial complex dovetail?

(See WHERE'S MINE? Inequality in the US and the Military-Industrial Complex )







What value might be obtained by having a really high quality "channel" on social media that people can tune in to for news and ideas about war abolition?

(See #NOwar - Permanently Trending on Twitter? YES!)

COLOMBIA: Where did the violence come from?

Colombia (with marker at the Pacific port of Buenaventura)

As a peace agreement draws near in Colombia, it is a good time for people in the US to try to learn a little bit about what has been going on in that country.

A few years ago, I got way outside my comfort zone and read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. Yes, yes, I know it's a work of fiction -- "magical realist" fiction at that -- but it's also a plunge into one particular point of view about the Latin American experience from the perspective of someone who came from northeastern Colombia. (Not to mention some basic facts of geography and demographics: but of course, unlike me, you already knew that Colombia has a Caribbean coast and a Pacific coast, connecting to Panama at its northwest corner, right?)

I had thought (like most people in the US, I suppose) that Colombia is a country of jungles, suitable for clandestinely growing cocaine and channeling it to markets like the US. I couldn't picture much else. But as I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, I started to try to imagine the history of Colombia -- a place to which thousands of people had come to try to make a life through mining and agriculture and trade. I tried to imagine the spirit in which people embarked on military campaigns, as a logical extension of their efforts to build wealth and grow their families. Riding roughshod over the indigenous peoples, disregard for inequality and inequity, and deep-seated racism seemed to be part of the ethos.

Hold that thought.

Now, read the snapshot of life in the southeast coastal area of Colombia (red flag in map above) on the Peace Brigades International website: "The women of Puente Nayero."  This is a current account of the simple existence that the ordinary people of Colombia are trying to eke out, and the pain and trauma they are experiencing as a result of the years of violence in Colombia.

Perhaps, like me, you will read a sentence like, "In 2001, many people came to her neighbourhood looking for a new home, fleeing from the Naya River where the paramilitaries had massacred and displaced the Afro-Colombian communities," and wonder what it refers to. Luckily, these days we're all just a few clicks away from answers:

Another massacre took place at Alto Naya, Cauca department on April 12, 2001, in which an estimated 40-130 civilians were killed, and thousands displaced. Approximately 100 paramilitaries from the Frente Calima ("Calima Front") participated in the killings.

The first victim was a 17-year-old girl named Gladys Ipia whose head and hands were cut off with a chain saw. Next, six people were shot while eating at a local restaurant. Another man was chopped into pieces and burned. A woman had her abdomen ripped open with a chainsaw. An indigenous leader named Cayetano Cruz, was cut in half with a chainsaw. The paramilitaries lined up the villagers in the middle of the town, and asked people if they knew any guerrillas. If they answered "no", they were hacked to death with machetes. Many of the bodies were dismembered, and strewn piecemeal around the area, making it difficult to gain an accurate body count and identify victims. Between 4,000 and 6,000 people were displaced as they fled the area during and following the violence.

Despite repeated warnings over the preceding two weeks that such an attack was about to occur, the Colombian military refused to provide protection for the villagers. And although the massacre went on for more than three days, the nearby Third Brigade did not show up until after it was over. Yet when the FARC attempted to take over a town, in neighboring Nariño, the military responded within three hours. Some of the villagers traveled to the Colombian Army's Third Brigade an hour away. The Cauca People’s Defender, Victor Javier Melendez, notified the military that a massacre was occurring on the morning of April 13. He received no response. The Colombian Public Advocate's office stated: "it is inexplicable how approximately 500 paramilitaries could carry out an operation of this type without being challenged in any way, especially since the area that these men entered is only twenty minutes from the village of Timba, where a base operated by the Colombian Army is located and has been staffed since March 30 of this year." (Source: Wikipedia: "Right-wing paramilitarism in Colombia: The Alto Naya massacre")

Perhaps, like me, you'll wonder how cruelty like this can occur. Scroll up the page and discover the picture of a US military officer:

General William P. Yarborough

In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team", composed of counterinsurgency experts, to investigate Colombia's internal security situation, due to the increased prevalence of armed communist groups in rural Colombia which formed during and after La Violencia. Three years later, in February 1962, a Fort Bragg top-level U.S. Special Warfare team headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P. Yarborough, visited Colombia for a second survey.

In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a paramilitary force to commit sabotage and terrorist acts against communists:

"A concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later. This should be done with a view toward development of a civil and military structure for exploitation in the event the Colombian internal security system deteriorates further. This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed, perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents. It should be backed by the United States." [emphasis added]

The new counter-insurgency policy was instituted as Plan Lazo in 1962 and called for both military operations and civic action programs in violent areas. Following Yarborough's recommendations, the Colombian military recruited civilians into paramilitary "civil defense" groups which worked alongside the military in its counter-insurgency campaign, as well as in civilian intelligence networks to gather information on guerrilla activity. Among other policy recommendations the US team advised that "in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature." It was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations. (Source: Wikipedia: "Right-wing paramilitarism in Colombia: Plan Lazo")

Plan Lazo? Clearly there is much more to learn and think about . . . .


As the peace process yields fruit in Colombia, let's not let it be an invitation to wash our hands and say, "Well that's one problem solved," and forget about it. Let's have the fortitude to try to learn a little bit about what has been happening in Colombia -- and what our part in it has been -- and begin to ask how we can participate in healing.

Yes, read One Hundred Years of Solitude. But also devote at least the same amount of time to connecting the dots about recent Colombian history and the role of the US.


Related posts

It will take me multiple posts to spell out everything that I feel needs to be said about the Ayotzinapa 43.  People in the US need to work to change their own attitude about Mexico, and about the culpability or all of us here in the US in the wrongs that are being done down there. The Ayotzinapa 43 were persecuted for saying "the future can be different." It's time for us to take up their cry.

(See Ayotzinapa43: US People Need an Attitude Adjustment )





How do you observe Indigenous Peoples Day?

(See Reflections on Indigenous Peoples Day 2015)











"Missa dos Quilombos" asked for forgiveness and sought healing for the legacy of slavery in Brazil. Dom Helder celebrated the Quilombo Mass. He said: "Mariama [Mother Mary], we aren't here to ask that today's slaves be tomorrow's slave masters. Enough of slaves! Enough of masters! We want liberty!" The beating of the drums was overpowering, they exploded like the screams of our souls!

(See Hélder Câmara and Liberation Theology 101: Where? When? Why? Who? )


"You may not understand every word, you may feel uncomfortable, you may have to spend time later trying to figure it out or to humble yourself now and ask for help; you may have to work at it. But in the long run . . . a Spanish speaker is what you are . . . because that's the community you're a part of!"

(See Don't speak Spanish? "Sure you do . . . .")




In a composition suggestive of a yin-yang symbol, a woman in a burka (but wearing audacious red glitter platform heels) is surrounded by genie-ish tableaus of the many male obsessions/pastimes that some of us rail about frequently -- sexualized pop singers, professional sports -- as well as some that we probably should rail about more (such as patriarchy in religion and political violence).

(See VIOLENCE: " . . . and the women must live with the consequences . . . " )

Chicago asks: Where's MINE? 04.01.2016

Chicago asks: Where's MINE? #WheresMine 04.01.2016

On Friday night, October 7, 2011, I was sitting with colleagues in a restaurant in Chicago's Greektown. We were anticipating the next day's Antiwar march on the 10th anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, and we were also thinking ahead to the spring, 2012, NATO/G8 summit in Chicago.

We were talking about possible protest activities against NATO/G8, and their location relative to the summit meeting at McCormick Place. I remember saying something like, "It would be wonderful to see participation in every neighborhood in Chicago -- after all, the people in the our Chicago communities have a real beef with the elites that are terrorizing the rest of the world with war and failing to deliver for people here at home. Protests in every neighborhood in Chicago -- that would be the perfect 'welcome' for NATO/G8."

I even had a theme: #WheresMine. (Columnist Mike Royko said in his book Boss that the motto of Chicago is "City in a Garden" but it should be "Where's mine?")

OK, ok, spring 2012 may have been a little early to call for a general strike in Chicago.

Spring 2016 on the other hand . . . . 

The Chicago Teacher's Union has called for a general strike in Chicago to take place just three days from now, on April 1.

As I look back over posts (below) from recent months, it's no mystery why they'll be successful. Illinois budget cuts . . . police murders . . . abuses at Cook County Jail . . . the Homan Square black site scandal . . .   Failures of the CHA . . . . and more.

Want to get involved? It will be easy. Just walk outside your door and look for the protests on April 1.

Just look in any neighborhood in Chicago . . . .


Related posts

How might an uprising against inequality and dismantling the military-industrial complex dovetail?

(See WHERE'S MINE? Inequality in the US and the Military-Industrial Complex )







People in Illinois are standing up against the attempt by Governor Bruce Rauner to gut services in the state.  Courageous people are demanding change in "Moral Monday" protests.

(See PROTESTS IN ILLINOIS: Do these people look like they're gonna back down? )





In Chicago, one of the things that means is noticing the worsening housing situation, and the failure of the City to live up to its responsibility to help people who live their have affordable housing.

(See Palm Sunday March 20 in Chicago: Occupy!)




Poll figures indicate that SIXTY-FOUR PERCENT of Chicagoans think cover-ups and a code of silence are "a widespread problem" at the Chicago Police Department.

(See #ChiPAC: It's time. (Civilian Control of the Police in Chicago))



Cook County Jail is the perfect example of the nationwide injustice that Michelle Alexander described in her groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration, focused principally one people of color, in which "crimes" (often related to drug possession or other low-level offenses) become the mechanism for entrapping people in a cycle of incarceration that is brutalizing and often begins a downward spiral of lifetime discrimination.

(See Free Them All )




People around the world reading the exposé in The Guardian today about the thousands of (mostly African-American) people denied their rights while being detained at a secret Chicago Police Department location at Homan Square might wonder if anyone in Chicago is doing anything in an attempt to get control of the police.

(See CHICAGO: Twilight Zone? Constitution-Free Zone? (What's it look like to YOU?) )

Have a Conversation with a Trump Supporter Today

Peter Ross Range,
1924: The Year That Made Hitler

Völkisch is very hard to define and almost untranslatable into English. The word has been rendered as popular, populist, people's, racial, racist, ethnic-chauvinist, nationalistic, communitarian (for Germans only), conservative, traditional, Nordic, romantic -- and it means, in fact, all of those. The völkisch political ideology ranged from a sense of German superiority to a spiritual resistance to "the evils of industrialization and the atomization of modern man," wrote scholar David Jablonsky. But its central component, as Harold J. Gordon, Jr., noted, was always racism. (Peter Ross Range, 1924: The Year That Made Hitler, note p. 27)

I decided I was going to sit down today and tell people about the book I'm currently reading: 1924: The Year That Made Hitler.

I thought it would be helpful to share some of the quotes I have found so chilling as I've encountered them in the book, quotes like:

"It makes no difference whatever whether they laugh at us or revile us," he wrote later. "The main thing is that they mention us." (p. 27)

I thought people should be encouraged to look at this book and notice the similarities between the personality that came out of nowhere in Germany in 1923-1924, and the personality that has grabbed the spotlight in the US in 2015-2016.

Action was his aphrodisiac, his catnip, his default. His impetuosity often overwhelmed all other considerations, as the world would later learn . . . .  (p. 63)

Events in the past 72 hours have only served to further stimulate that idea. Rallies and counter-rallies and shouts and threats and more all seemed to work in favor of that 1923-1924 demagogue.

"Every German should have the right to stand up for the ideals he believes in and to use his fists to strike down others who use their fists to block him or prevent the truth from getting through." (p. 139)

I worry that they are working in the same way for today's demagogue, too.

But I woke up this morning thinking, "It's not his personality that's really at issue; it's actually not really about the fringe views he espouses, either.  It's not even the outward behavior of the supporters of different points of view. What's at stake is: There are a lot of people who are so enormously disillusioned and frustrated and fearful that they are actually finding relief in identifying with all this. What have we got to offer them?"

If people decide they can no longer talk to each other, Trump has won. If, on the other hand, we can find a way to talk with each other, there is hope.

Therefore, I have altered my original plan. Originally I planned to use this space to share aspects of 1924: The Year That Made Hitler that bear an eerie resemblance to Donald Trump and his campaign. Instead, I will try to talk about this question: "What were ordinary Germans experiencing in 1923-1924 that can help us form the basis of conversations with fellow US people in 2016?"

Perhaps that is the most important comparison of all . . . . 


Related posts

I wondered at how we could have covered all that in just a minute or two -- the time it takes to go a few stops.  After all, when I walked onto that bus we were strangers.

(See Listening for Community (A Chicago Encounter))




How might an uprising against inequality and dismantling the military-industrial complex dovetail?

(See WHERE'S MINE? Inequality in the US and the Military-Industrial Complex )







I believe when Jesus broke the bread and poured the wine and said "Remember me this way," he was much more interested in encouraging us to keep having conversations -- conversations that really matter -- with others . . . and finding ways to be in relationship with our neighbors . . . all the while reminding us "never underestimate the power of food" . . .

(See Get Outside Your Comfort Zone and Have A Conversation Today (Welcome to the Ministry))

Selected Scarry Thoughts

I'm currently living in Berkeley, CA. Below are some of the issues I'm working on.

Anyone who has had to write a speech knows that the hardest part is to land on the main idea. Once you've got that right, the rest practically writes itself.

(See "The way to respond to ISIS is not through violence." )

What I'm feeling particularly energized about is the potential for thousands of people who have decided that we can really say no to ALL war to become active participants in spreading this good news.

(See News Worth Spreading: "There IS An Alternative to War!" )





There is an eerie similarity between events in the book Paul Revere's Ride and events in our world today. I'm thinking particularly of how a network of mass resistance springs into action.

(See American Rebellion: Just Think What They Would've Done with Twitter!)












One thing that is clear to me is that the way community forms on Twitter bears the closest resemblance to the characteristics of community formation that we, as activists, need to work with from now on.

(See Twitter Community for Activism: What Do We Understand?)



"Could it possibly be that we're not supposed to try to hang onto people? Is is possible that we're supposed to prepare people, and then let them go?" 

(See What I Learned in Church (7 Habits) )













The panopticon was a prison design that reversed the old paradigm, in which prisoners were stored away, "out of sight, out of mind," and instead arrayed them in a way in which they could be observed as efficiently as possible by the fewest number of managers.

(See Drones, 1984, and Foucault's Panopticon)

The biggest idea coming out of the 2013 Drone Summit? We will only deal successfully with the crimes being committed using drones when we understand them as part of the much larger war against communities of color . . . .

(See Drone Gaze, Drone Injury: The War on Communities of Color )

I believe Easter is God's gift to humanity of victory over death, hopelessness and frailty, and I believe that God is alive and in our midst. The witness of the Guantanamo lawyers has confirmed me in those beliefs.

(See Easter Victory: The Guantanamo Lawyers )






So as I watched Ziggy for the first time last night, I asked myself, "What is it? What is it? What is the frisson that one feels? It's part charisma, part sexuality, partly the thrill of gender-bending, partly adolescent rebellion . . . . But what is it that Ziggy did (and does) for so many people?" (It can't be a single thing, can it?)

(See "You're NOT alone!" (Ziggy the Subversive) )

Faced with chorus of voices saying, "Isn't it time for you to tone it down? Can't you be more reasonable? What is it you want, anyway?" Jesus kept right on doing what he was doing. And that was a sign to us about how to live our lives . . . .

(See WWJD? Occupy! )







This past fall, a friend said to me, "It's good that you came to the demonstration; it would be even better if you brought a sign!" That was the start of something I've enjoyed a lot. And a lot of those signs have found their way into my blog posts.

(See Scarry Signs )






How might an uprising against inequality and dismantling the military-industrial complex dovetail?

(See WHERE'S MINE? Inequality in the US and the Military-Industrial Complex )

More than anyone else, the beneficiaries of permawar are the politicians who thrive on the power to make and control wars. The number one prime beneficiary is the President, as well as presidential aspirants. But it doesn't end there . . . .

(See J'ACCUSE: The Beneficiaries of Permawar )




 

I don't think Alanna and I ever talked about what it must be like to be trying to escape a shower of sparks and hot ash. But she seemed to know that the sparks and hot ash are too important a part of the picture to be left out.


(See The Children Are Waiting )

I'm marveling at the adjacency of a piece of public art -- one with a very clear message about the risk of human ambition and self-absorption and heedlessness -- to the center of political power in the city of Chicago.

(See NUCLEAR WEAPONS: Who will bring us down to earth? )

Hibakusha is a word that has traditionally been used to refer to people affected by the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagaski.  It is now being broadened to recognize the many additional victims of acute affects of nuclear radiation (including fallout from tests and radioactivity from mining and processing). In fact, we are all subject to the impact and threat of nuclear radiation spread indiscriminately by nations and corporations.

(See HIROSHIMA: What does it mean to say, "We are ALL 'hibakusha'?")






Before there was the NATO5 -- or the NATO3 -- there was NATOin5. People tweeted their summaries of NATO in just 5 words (hashtag: #NATOin5). It all started with an interview between Eric Zorn and Andy Thayer about NATO ....

(See #NATOin5)

At the end of the first day of the 2012 CODEPINK drone conference, I came to a realization: the fundamental problem that we had all gathered to address is that drones render killing 100% invisible. And as long as the killing is invisible, we lose the most powerful tool we have for fighting the killing: the disgust and outrage of the general public.

(See Make Drone Killing 100% VISIBLE!)

Cook County Jail is the perfect example of the nationwide injustice that Michelle Alexander described in her groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration, focused principally one people of color, in which "crimes" (often related to drug possession or other low-level offenses) become the mechanism for entrapping people in a cycle of incarceration that is brutalizing and often begins a downward spiral of lifetime discrimination.

(See Free Them All )

 Years later, during the time I was busily traveling to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and many other places, I had occasion one day to flip open my (real) passport, and all the extension pages, filled with visa stamps, cascaded out. The memory of Expo 67 and my "globetrotting" came rushing back to me . . .

(See O Canada! (We'll always have "Expo" . . . . ))

Ever since I went there to study Chinese as a junior in college, I've considered Taiwan my "second home."


(See Taipei c. 1979 )





 


What people in Asia (and others) have seen for the past century is that something is happening in the Pacific, and it's being driven in part by advances in naval (and, subsequently, aviation and electronics) technology, and in part by powerful nations (principally, but not limited to, the U.S.) proximate to the area.

(See The Imperialized Pacific: What We Need to Understand)

Oil companies are valued by the market based on their reserves. The problem with this approach is that the total reserves claimed by the oil companies is FIVE TIMES what can possibly be burned without driving up the temperature of the atmosphere up by a catastrophic amount and, as McKibben puts it, "breaking the planet." How can the value of oil companies be a function of reserves that can never be used?

(See The REALLY Big Short: The Jig is Up with Oil Companies)





 

Eventually, in large part due to Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, the United States was converted from a country in which a small number of people thought slavery needed to be ended into a country determined to act to end slavery. This literary work took the movement wide, and it took it deep.

Why is a novel an important tool for creative resistance?


(See Creative Resistance 101: Uncle Tom's Cabin )


 


A campaign exists to bring about a democratically-elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) in Chicago. The campaign would involve the people in electing the watchers of the police, and put the ultimate control of (and responsibility for) the police in the hands of the citizens of Chicago.

(See Does a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) need to be part of a "new plan of Chicago"? )
 

When Chicagoans fully succeed in fully connecting the dots -- especially to the crimes being committed in their name with their tax dollars and the weapons produced by their favored corporate citizen, Boeing -- I think there will be some new and different phone calls taking place . . .

(See What's New in Chicago: Connecting the Dots - US Aid, Boeing Weapons, Gaza Massacre, Chicago Complicity )








Steven Salaita has forced us to speak quite openly about three rather distinct things that get treated (incorrectly) as if they were the same thing: the state of Israel (and whether you criticize it or support it); the ideology of Zionism (and whether you criticize it or support it); and the religion of Judaism (and whether or not you share in its values and beliefs).

(See "What good is a tweet?" (The Packing and Unpacking of Meaning and the Steven Salaita Case) )

For the members of this congregation,

who will continue gathering as a people of God in a new place,
that today will mark not only the end of an era
but also the beginning of new opportunities for worship and service.

(See A Prayer for St. Luke's (Annotated and Illustrated) )