Bombs away!

No, I don’t mean drop bombs from an airplane.  I mean bombs go away, bombs never to be used again.  Let’s get rid of nuclear weapons, drone bombers, conventional bombs, cannons, and all other weapons that indiscriminately kill bad people as well as good people.

Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?

From Bob Dylan’s web site at  http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/blowin-wind

Unfortunately, the answer is not blowing in the wind from the mouths of politicians around the world.  They blow out phrases like “defense”, “saving jobs”, and “gun rights”.

We should ask “defense of what”?  Defense of the right to tell other people how to live?  Defense from dictators?  Strange, we are allies with lots of dictators, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  Oh, but they are “our” dictators, not “their” dictators.  Defense from Communism?  Communism as a label is all but dead.  “Communism” in China is just a label for another dictatorship that is withering away.  “Communism” in North Korea is a name for a paranoid dictatorship.  Our “defense” against North Korea only serves to feed the paranoia.

Another paranoid quasi-dictatorship is Russia.  But consider the historical reason for its paranoia.  The Mongols invaded, the French invaded, the Germans invaded twice, and now the alliance that was built as defense against the Soviet Union keeps expanding, feeding the paranoia of not only Vladimir Putin, but many ordinary Russians.  Of course, it doesn’t help the alliance that Putin’s given name contains the Russian words for lord and world.

If we are so interested in “saving jobs”, we should never have instituted Prohibition.  Think of how many bartenders, servers, distillers, and brewers lost their jobs.  Prohibition did help the gun industry, guns for both the bootleggers and for the police.

Do we want to “save jobs” at the cost of lives far, far away?  How many wedding guests should die because somebody up in the sky decided the guests were “terrorists”?  How many hospitals must be destroyed because enemy combatants were believed to be hiding there?  Interesting, the “enemy combatants” live in the country; the bombers are from a country far, far away.

I didn’t know guns had “rights”.  As far as protection in case of a terrorist attack, would more people die because some of the target group had weapons?  John pulls out a gun to shoot the terrorists.  Mary sees John with a gun in his hand and thinking he is a terrorist, shoots him.  Even the police have a hard time shooting the terrorists.  And the police get wounded and killed.  Major Hassan at Fort Hood wounded and downed a police officer who had excellent scores in marksmanship.  Her partner managed to wound Hassan enough to get him to stop shooting.

Maybe the better idea is to keep military-style weapons in armories and not make them easily available to the general public.  Many seem to have forgotten that we had armories to keep the more deadly weapons away from the general public but available to the militia in case of insurrection.

Another better idea is to use propaganda instead of bombs.

Instead of attacking Israel, Palestinian protesters should fly children’s balloons over Israel.  Each balloon would carry a slip of paper with the words of Hillel in Hebrew: “Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.”

Instead of burying Daesh terrorists in bomb debris, bury them in pamphlets: “...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” _ Qur’an (Surah 24, “The Light”, v. 22)

And of course, the “bomb them back to the Stone Age” bloviators who claim to be “Christian” should receive letters from their constituents: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” – Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 7:12

I am surprised that Iran didn’t use this latter quotation with those negotiating to stop Iran’s nuclear capacity.  All the nuclear-armed negotiators except the Chinese purport to be Christians.  If the negotiating countries didn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, shouldn’t Iran have proposed some schedule for these “nuclear powers” to eliminate their nuclear weapons?

Maybe the only answer is for a peace coalition to be formed in the United Nations.  It could start with countries without militaries, like Iceland and Costa Rica.  This coalition could offer a time table for the elimination of nuclear weapons, then of massive navies, then of bombs, then of armies.

Impossible?  Improbable?  Maybe!  Consider that Europe had a very vicious war, with many, many civilian deaths on both sides, seventy years ago.  The Cold War ended twenty-four years ago.  And a country divided by that war is now a major player on the world stage.

The answer my friend is blowing in your votes!

Are “conservatives” the lackeys of Daesh?

One of the ways that people control a narrative is by defining the terms.  The more the terms are favorable to their narrative, the more they get others to “dance to their tune”.  Both Daesh and “conservatives” have been controlling the narrative to their respective audiences.

What’s this Daesh?  It is the Arabic term for the group that calls itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), or just the Islamic State (IS).  Keith Ellison, a member of Congress from Minnesota and a Muslim, refuses to use these “Islamic” descriptions and uses Daesh instead.  One, Daesh does not represent the Islam that Ellison and many others follow.  Two, Daesh does not like this name which is somewhat of a pejorative in Arabic.

Look at this another way.  Daesh represents Islam no more than the Coo Coo Clucks Clan represents Christianity.  By the way, many letter writers say that all Muslims should speak out against Daesh; they forget that many Christians did not openly criticize the Coo Coo Clucks Clan.

Many Muslims are speaking out against Daesh.  See the article about Rep. Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, the other Representative who is a Muslim speaking out against Daesh (see CQ Roll Call, 2015-11-17, also published in the Duluth News Tribune the next day).  The article stated that Ellison and Carson shared the same religion as the terrorists; this is way off the mark.  It is like saying those who call for punishment of gays share Christianity with those who believe “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

Also, by the time you read this, my friend M. Imran Hayee should have his own take on Daesh published in the Duluth News Tribune.

Why are “conservatives” the lackeys of Daesh?  Because Daesh wants a war with “Christianity” and anybody else who doesn’t share their corrupted view of Islam.  The “conservatives” think that the U.S. is the Calvary of the movies and will save the wagon train from the bandits or the Indians.  As “Leader of the Free World” with the mightiest army in the world, the U.S. will crush anybody who is not for “freedom”.

But what is the reality of the effectiveness of the U.S. military against a “moral” force such as Daesh?

In 1775, a ragtag army took on a heavily trained army of a distant empire.  It took some years, but with the help of another empire they forced that army to surrender.  Then a much better trained U.S. Army took on lightly-armed groups of a widely-dispersed populace.  In the next century, the U.S. military joined several other countries in defeating an opposing army in a long-drawn out struggle.  That led to the same defeated army being reconstituted under a dictator far worse than the Kaiser of two decades earlier.  Again the U.S. joined several other militaries to defeat this dictator and his army.  Half-way around the world the U.S. military joined several other militaries to defeat an Imperial military.

Then with the confidence from that war the U.S. fought an army that tried to unite a country under its dictator rather than the dictator of the other half of the country.  That other half did move to a democracy that is prospering compared to the invading half which has been living under a brutal line of paranoid dynastic dictators.

These military successes led to a confidence that has not been fulfilled since.

First, the U.S. thought it could fight a guerrilla army that knew the language and had willing and unwilling support from a large portion of the country.  The U.S. could never be sure who was friend and who was foe.  The U.S. had to leave for a variety of reasons.  Ironically, that same country is now a trading partner.  Even though the government is still run by “godless” Communists, it seems to have taken to heart the Christian dictum “forgive those who trespass against you.”

The U.S. did have success in defeating a “ferocious” army that was more bluster than power.  It did leave the dictator in power, but the U.S. did accomplish the goal of getting the dictator’s army out of the country he invaded.

Next, the U.S. took on fighters in a strongly religious country that had a very corrupt government.  The U.S. could never tell for sure who was friend or foe.  That fight still goes on.

Then the U.S. took on the dictator with the “ferocious” army again and sent him into hiding.  However, for a variety of reasons, the country became splintered into several factions and no local politician has made any serious attempt to unify the country.  The U.S. tried supporting the government against its antagonists, but like the army of 1776, the antagonists are scattered throughout the populace.

Out of this chaos has come Daesh.  Who does the U.S. have as allies in the region?  A military dictatorship and the country that promotes Wahhabism, the unforgiving variety of Islam that created Daesh, an Islam that ignores “As Allah forgives you, forgive others.”

Now we have “conservatives” who are “liberal” with dropping bombs in the Middle East.  Are they just playing into the hands of Daesh?  These “Christians” want to keep out Muslims who are fleeing Daesh.  They are afraid that terrorists might come in with the refugees.  But by dropping more bombs and by refusing refugees, might we just reinforce Daesh’s claim that there is a Christian war against Islam?

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2015-11-25 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/24/6304_are_conservatives_the_lackeys_of_daesh

Do we reap what we sow?

 History is filled with “what ifs?”  What if the Normans hadn’t invaded England?  What if Columbus hadn’t sailed across the Atlantic?  What if England had included the colonies in Parliament?

We really don’t know how much different actions would have gotten quite different results.  Several authors have written speculative fiction describing outcomes quite different from actual history.  One example is an author who wrote several books on what if the South had won the Civil War.

I don’t really know how things would have turned out if only…, but bear with me as I join the speculators.

Lincoln went to war against the Confederacy because he felt that an un-United States would have left the States open to foreign intervention.  It wasn’t so much that he wanted to free the slaves, but the South did fear the North taking away its slaves.  Lincoln did take away the slaves, but that left so much resentment that “blacks” still are treated as second class citizens in much of the South, to say nothing of the murders committed against blacks in the South (and in the North too).

If the South had successfully seceded, with or without a war, would the slaves eventually be freed?  Probably not.  For example, textile mills in New England would be eager to buy slave-picked cotton from the South.  And manufacturers in the North would be eager to sell all kinds of labor-saving machinery to the South.  Would that machinery be more efficient than slaves?  Thereby reducing the market in slaves?  We really don’t know.

In Europe empires grew to embrace many people of quite different languages and interests.  The empires in turn were distrustful of each other and made treaties with “friendly” empires to protect themselves against “unfriendly” empires.  They thought a balance of power would create a balance of peace.  Then “one leg of the chair” collapsed.  With a single assassination, one group of empires felt the need to attack another group of empires.

If there had been an alliance of all the nations of Europe to settle disputes in a more peaceful manner, would there have been “The War to End All Wars”?  We do know that most of those countries are now at peace with one another.

But at the end of World War I, some victors wanted to punish the losers.  This punishment had two different serious consequences.

In Europe, the injustices perceived by the Germans led to the rise of Adolph Hitler.  Millions died because they were “other” and millions died because of the wars Hitler started.  Consider that not all these deaths were caused by Hitler and his Japanese allies.  The number of innocent people killed in the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are far greater than the number of people killed in a decade of “Islamic” terrorism.

In the Middle East the Ottoman Empire was broken up willy-nilly without any consideration for the people of the various countries created.  Then oil was discovered and buying countries wanted to make sure they had stable supplies.  It didn’t matter what the form of government was or the what the wishes of the people were.  The buyers supported non-democratic leaders with nary a blink of an eye.  In fact, if a democratic leader tried to change oil contracts to be more beneficial to his country, the buyers sought to overthrow him and replace him with an autocrat.  Remember Mosaddegh and Reza Pahlavi?  Is it any wonder that the ayatollahs took over and had so much animosity to the U.S.?

Then George W. Bush and company decided that they had to do something about Saddam Hussein because of 9/11.  How many Iraqis died because of this war?  It was far more than had died in any number of terrorist attacks before.  And the easy victory that the Bush administration predicted resulted in chaos that still hasn’t settled down either with a stable democracy or a firm dictator.

Into the vacuum came equally hard-nosed militants who believed Allah was on their side.  I find it strange that Allah isn’t booming down from heaven the same message to the rest of us.  And strange that God isn’t booming the same message that George W. Bush received.

All of this religiosity seems to ignore the more gentle wisdom that is in both the Bible and the Koran: do unto others as you would have them to do you, blessed are the peacemakers, the sins of the fathers are passed on to the sons, yea unto the seventh generation, and many more.

“Yet it is in fact militarization that is the cause of the problem in the first place.” - Ben Norton

If you have an hour to spare, read Ben Norton’s “Our Terrorism Double Standard: After Paris Let’s Stop Blaming Muslims and Take a Hard Look at Ourselves”, Salon, 2015-11-14 at
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/14/our_terrorism_double_standard_after_paris_lets_stop_blaming_muslims_and_take_a_hard_look_at_ourselves/ The article doesn’t take an hour to read, but you will want to read many of the related articles in the sidebar.

After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush is infamously quoted as advising Americans to “Go shopping.”  I think it was a misguided attempt to ask people to act normally.  My advice to Americans after any of these catastrophes is “Go vote”.  Too often the militant vote and the peacemakers stay home.

Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-11-19 at
http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/18/6257_do_we_reap_what_we_sow

Do you reflect your god or does your god reflect you?

George Washington and others have stated that we cannot have morality without religion.  On the other hand, how often do we have religion without morality?

Too many people who proclaim adherence to one religion or another have no morality; that is, they think it is perfectly all right to kill those who do not believe as they do: from the Inquisition to ISIS.  And the lack of morality seems to be worse the more these people claim they have the “true religion”!  Morality is basically do unto other as you would have them do to you.

I just read in Sharon Shinn’s “Dark Moon Defender” the following:

“The goddess abhors mystics.  The goddess demands of her faithful followers that they eradicate magic from the land.”

“Any goddess who demands wicked behavior is wicked herself.  Why would you choose to serve a deity like that?”

Shinn’s book was published in 2006.  I wonder if she had any particular groups in mind that want to kill those who don’t believe as they do.

This I Believe

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.”
- Matthew 22:37-38

The Bible quotes I use are from the New International Version as found in www.BibleGateway.com.

Jesus is quoting an earlier text: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
- Deuteronomy 6:5

But who or what is God?  Is he some big guy in the sky?  This is what people of the times believed about God or most other gods they believed in.  Now we can see into the “heavens” and all we see are big rocks and burning suns on and on and on.

Or is God a metaphor of all existence.?  A God that “sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous”?  That is, if we follow the “laws of nature” or take steps to protect ourselves from these laws we can “keep ourselves dry”.

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
- Matthew 22:39-40, see also Leviticus 19:19

Leviticus is more narrow than Matthew.  Leviticus limits “neighbor” to “among your people”.  Matthew expands “neighbor” to those outside “your people”, the hated Samaritans.

Rabbi Hillel, who taught from 30BCE to 10CE followed “Love your neighbor as yourself” with “the rest is commentary.” See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Quote/hillel.html.

Research for writing can take one down many unexpected paths.  The Jewish Virtual Library has an article on Hillel and his “friendly rival” Shammai.  See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/hillel.html.  What was interesting about this article was that Hillel was often the more liberal and popular of the two whereas Shammai was more conservative with very strict views.

What commentary we have in the Bible.  To me it is a source of myth, fable, propaganda, and wisdom.

The myths are the stories that attempt to explain how things came to be, from the creation stories to the Exodus.  If Adam and Eve were the first and only people, who did their children marry?  The children would have had to commit incest!  Compare Genesis 4 with Genesis 5. They seem to be two very different stories.

The fables are stories to illustrate some larger issue.  For example, the book of Job examines the problem of bad things happening to good people.  A loving, all-powerful God would not put the lives of innocent people in danger just because they were related to one “blameless and upright” man.

The propaganda is justification for deeds that are prohibited elsewhere: “but all the people [the Israelites] put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed.” – Joshua 11:14.  And this supposedly is after Moses brought down the Ten Commandments which included “You shall not murder.” – Exodus 20:13

The wisdom abounds.  The prime example is “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  If we don’t get along and help each other what kind of tooth and nail society will we have. “… for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”  Is a drone the modern version of a sword?  “You cannot serve both God and money.”  We certainly have become a nation that justifies letting money rule while claiming to be a “Christian nation.”

Many of us know “the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the sons, yea unto the seventh generation”.  I tried to find a source for this; I found nothing but others quoting it.  I guess this is a case of popular editing of the Bible.  What I did find was “punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 20:5 and others).  It was an admonition to follow the faith being laid down.  However, it could equally apply to pollution and global warming.  The harm we do to “God’s creation” could punish our children to the third and fourth generation, and beyond!

The greatest problems with the Bible are the selection of what is included, how accurate are the generations of transcriptions and translations, and how much crept in that was a belief of the time.  One example is just who went into town after Boaz scooped grain into Ruth’s shawl?  Boaz or Ruth?  See http://biblehub.com/ruth/3-15.htm for many variations of Ruth 3:15.  Did “he” go into town or did “she” go into town?

Does it really matter?  What really matters is that we seek a moral compass to help us all achieve a prosperous and just world.

M. Imran Hayee, a regular Local View contributor to the Duluth News Tribune, wrote that he considers the United States an Islamic nation: “Freedom, cleanliness make US the world’s most Islamic nation”, Dec. 8, 2013 (http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/285407/publisher_ID/36/).  He differentiates between Muslim countries where the majority consider themselves Muslims and Islamic countries where most Islamic values prevail.  He considers the Islamic values in the U.S. as cleanliness, charitable giving, and religious freedom.

Now if we could only have a Christian nation too; one where we “do unto other [nations] as we would have them do unto” us.

Also posted on the Reader Weekly website at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/12/19/2635_party_of_one-9.

If the United States were a Christian nation…

…it would follow the "second greatest commandment", "do unto others as you would have them do to you."

We do not want other countries invading us.
We do not want other countries assassinating our leaders.
We do not want other countries stationing troops in our country.
We do not want other countries dictating our choice of leaders.
We do not want other countries to have nuclear weapons.
We do not want other countries having bigger or more powerful militaries than we do.

And then there is, "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword".

We can only be considered a peace-loving nation when the State Department has a bigger budget than the War Department.

God, civility, and the Golden Rule

Some letter writers to the Duluth News Tribune have recently been calling for God in our lives to solve many of our problems.  Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisitor, believed in God, and he had thousands murdered because they didn’t believe as he did.  The Puritans believed in God, and they had dozens murdered because the innocent victims would not admit to being witches.  Plantation owners believed in God, and they kept slaves who they would whip for whatever cause.

The problem with a belief in God is that too many “believers” are very selective in what they believe.  Too many ignore a central tenet of monotheistic and other religions.

“Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.” – Hillel, a Jewish teacher in the first century, B.C.E.

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” – Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 7:12

“...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” _ Qur’an (Surah 24, “The Light”, v. 22)

"What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." – Confucius

“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him." – Plato’s Socrates (Crito, 49c)

You can find many more variations and sources of the “Golden Rule” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule.

What these religious and ethical variations call for is for us to be part of communities.  These communities are at neighborhood, city, national, and world levels.  They are as informal as holding a door for a stranger at a public building or as formal as churches and civic associations.

Unfortunately, many of us don’t act as if we are in some of these communities.  We walk out of our houses to our car on the street or in the garage and drive somewhere else without even seeing a neighbor.  We don’t bother to shovel our sidewalks because we don’t use them, completely ignoring all the footprints in the snow.  As we drive we are focused on thoughts elsewhere, whether in our heads, on our radios, or even on our cell phones.  We drive over crosswalks without even looking for pedestrians.  We drive through red lights ignoring any traffic or pedestrians waiting at the cross streets.  We race through parking garages without headlights and without watching for vehicles backing out.

Our first try at building communities should be to consider doing unto others what we appreciate others doing unto us.  Do we want to walk on clear sidewalks?  Do we want other drivers to be attentive to vehicles around them?  Do we want drivers to be attentive to us as we cross a street?  Do we want other drivers to wait for us to back out of a blind spot?

If we start with these small changes, maybe we can look at how we treat others in a larger context.  Do we talk about public employees as “they” or do we consider them our neighbors.  Did “they” make a patch on our street, or did a city crew make the patch?  Did “they” plow our street, or did an overworked city plow driver make our street more drivable?

Remember that the Good Samaritan of the Book of Luke was an “other”.  To build communities, we need to be open to including the “other” as our neighbors.

My best chuckle of the week

Jim Heffernan for years wrote a weekly column for the Duluth News Tribune. His column was a mix of commentary on daily life, Duluth, the state, the country, and the world, often with a bemused or satirical slant. He is now retired, but continues his column in his blog.

His latest was about the Second Coming, "The More Things Change, the More They Are the Same..." After reading it, I sent this note to Jim:

Dear Master of Satire,

“The second commandment is like unto to the first...” but many who call upon His Name seem more concerned about the commentary. The second commandment also means “we are the change”.

- Mel