Now wait just a little minute there
Print Friendly Version| From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB | August 14, 2008 |
| Vol. 6, No. 6 |
It was a touching, powerful and embarrassing piece of media. In fact, it was enough to make the average, newspaper-reading U.S. citizen blush. There stood the president of the United States speaking passionate words into a Rose Garden microphone. He was excoriating Russia's "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence toward Georgia, "a sovereign neighboring state," in retaliation for Georgia's suppression of Ossetia, its breakaway province. The action, George Bush said with properly restrained indignation, has "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world."
It was a stupefying moment. In response to Russia's troop movements into Georgia in defense of South Ossetia ,a province on Russia's southern border, George Bush, architect of the invasion of the still embroiled and desperately damaged "sovereign nation of Iraq" declared to the world that " such action [as Russia took] is unacceptable in the 21st century." Yo, George! Aren't you forgetting something?
Indeed, Bush had apparently forgotten that just weeks before his dramatic condemnation of the brutality of Russian foreign policy, the brutality of our own foreign policy in Iraq had been clearly and repeatedly exposed by our own Senate Intelligence Committee as also unacceptable. This was "a pot calling a kettle black," as my grandmother liked to say as she dismissed the rantings of political figures in full election array.
After years of stalling by Republican members of Congress, on June 5 the full report of the committee was finally released. But not to worry. The bet is that no one is paying any attention. Least of all George Bush whose distorted justifications for the invasion of that country trumped everything the rest of the international community either knew or knew they didn't know about the ethical exoneration of a maneuver that has killed more than 4,100 U.S. soldiers, 350 of the "coalition of the willing" and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them civilians.
What's more, the report is clear: The top administration officials who made the decision to take this country to war knew they were not telling the country the whole truth about what they knew or the reasons why they themselves were so intent on the invasion, despite overwhelming doubt about the legitimacy of it.
So how is it that a president can make such an officious display of condemning - demonizing -- another nation for doing the very thing we have done? How can we possibly threaten them with international opprobrium while we bask in fabricated virtue and ignore public opinion entirely?
Which leads to the present question: Whatever happened to that good old-fashioned custom of "confession?" First, law courts depend on it. Second, religions advise it. And third, psychologists see it as a sign of mental health. The political arena, on the other hand, seems to ignore it almost entirely anymore. Three strikes and you're out.
In a world that has become the global village Marshall McLuhan predicted in the '60s --20 years before the personal computer - "the medium," has indeed, "become the message." A president who can criticize others with such vehemence for doing exactly what he has just done and can neither redo nor undo nor solve and resolve, is a message for the world: Words are meaningless now.
And the questions that derive from that message are even more troublesome: Is honesty in human relations a thing of the past? Is denial now the global political strategy where truth might be a better answer? Is projection on an international scale now a global psychological disease? And is self-criticism, the gift of the sacrament of reconciliation, no longer a virtue. And if not, what does that bode for the political system and the mental health of the country in years to come, no matter which party is in power or which candidate is elected? Is this lack of ability to exercise self-criticism itself a deterrent to our ability to operate in the international domain?
Are we in a great deal more trouble than the simple confusion that comes in an election season with ads and counter ads more the coin of the realm than honest discussion or honest platform promises?
I remember where I was standing when Dwight Eisenhower admitted that he had lied to the country about the fact that we were spying on the Soviet Union with U-2 planes equipped with suicide gear. The first crack in the national carapace could be heard across the country. After that, the fact that presidents "had to lie" for one reason or another became commonplace.
But now, with the Rose Garden speech, something even more dismaying lurks in the air. Now, it seems, presidents lie to themselves, to the world, to us to such a degree that truth has taken a misty and shapeless turn. "What is truth?" another politician, Pilate, asks Jesus. It's a question to which we need an answer now more than ever.
Without a return to the essentials of truthful political discourse in a democracy, how much democracy is there, really? And how much cynicism has taken its place? "None of them tell the truth," the young man in the passenger seat next to me on the plane said of the John Edwards story. "I won't vote," he went on. "They're all the same. They say one thing one day, and the very opposite the next."
Well, maybe they do. But the question is why? Maybe we want to be seduced by tales of our national integrity. Maybe we never demand the kind of political confessions that could save our own reputation in the world.
From where I stand, we better do something to face all of this kind of talk soon. Or we won't be able to blame it on sleazy crooks and professional robbers. On the contrary, we will be watching the political system decline in Brooks Brothers suits and silk blouses at a dizzying pace. After all, it's a thin line between invading a country and "liberating a nation," between our nuclear bombs and theirs, between our anthrax and theirs. I'm sure, however, that in a Madison Avenue culture, we'll have better reasons for using them than they do. And if not that, we'll at least spin our spin and tell our lies with much more class and far better controlled indignation.
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Let’s assume with you,
Let’s assume with you, Patrick B., that Bush is hypocritical in condemning Russia for its violation of Georgia’s sovereignty. But didn’t Russia, a vociferous defender of national sovereignty at the U.N. Security Council, go ahead and violate Georgia’s sovereignty? And isn’t Russia’s hypocritical violation the issue on the table right now? And isn’t that where we should be focusing our attention right now?
So I’m wondering (to borrow your words) “What is blocking [your] view of this situation which prevents [your] awareness and potential ability to deal with this situation?�
Ken
Did you notice Bush and his
Did you notice Bush and his America getting mentioned at the just-completed Lambeth Conference of international Anglican bishops? And getting mentioned in a way that made the media pay heed?
Yes, indeed, and it was The Rt. Rev. Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham and 4th ranking bishop in the Church of England, who brought up the subject of Bush and his America and gave it this compelling twist:
“George Bush said he was going to invade Iraq. Everyone told him not to because there would be consequences, but he did anyway. The Americans floated the balloon in 2003 when they consecrated Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. They knew exactly what they were doing then and they know exactly what they are doing now. They knew it would be unacceptable to the majority of the [Anglican] Communion. They are doing exactly as they please. Either the rest of the world caves in or someone has to stand up to them.� (“Gay bishop’s row ‘like Iraq war’ in TimesOnline, 20 July 2008)
As seen from abroad, “to act ‘how they please’ with disregard for the rest of the world� is every bit as much an American Liberal as an American Conservative thing. It’s an AMERICAN THING, pure and simple. It’s what the USA does no matter the political party in power or the social philosophy prevailing or the religious view carrying the most weight at any given moment or the public issue in question.
To many people abroad, Bush foreign policy and U.S. Episcopal Church foreign policy both show Americans acting how they please and using piety to justify it and, afterwards, resisting any urging for self-criticism. And, ironically, what American Liberals rail against so vigorously in Bush, they are every bit as guilty of—though too steeped in the same pushy Americanism to notice. But people abroad do notice!
The big problem with your August 14 FWIS is that you speak less than the full truth about America. Your truth doesn’t rise to the level of insight in Bishop Wright’s. Your truth is shaded and, yes, partisan.
And isn’t that a form of lying?
MinnyW
From: Mario Goveia To:
From: Mario Goveia
To: Sister Joan
>
Dear Sister,
>
After Russia invaded Georgia, without any prior discussions at the UNSC, or any UN resolution authorising it to do so, I watched in vain for you and your ilk to march in front of the Russian embassy in protest. I waited and waited, before giving up and switching to the Olympics, because I remembered that you have different standards for the US versus authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
>
Oh, by the way, I did not see any of you march in front of the Afghan Embassy when the Taliban were brutalizing Afghan women and girls, whipping them in the streets and beheading them in the football stadium in Kabul and banning any education for females under pain of severe consequences. Neither did I see any of you marching on the Iraqi Embassy during the twelve years when Saddam was filling dozens of graves with the bodies of his political enemies and refusing to show the UN inspectors that he had no WMDs. You still claim he never had any, but are willing to believe he was unable to show anyone that he did not. I guess this makes sense to you and those who think like you, with blinders on, and never let any facts get in your way.
>
With that as background, I guess it would be too much to look for any of you to march in front of the Sudanese Embassy either.
>
An Iraqi friend, who still has scars from being whipped by Saddam's goons, laughed out loud recently when I showed him your description of his country as, "still embroiled and desperately damaged "sovereign nation of Iraq". He called his brother in Iraq and told him, and we all had a good laugh at your characterisation. His brother remarked, "Tell those fools that we would still be getting tortured, raped and killed if they had had their way." I wish you could talk to his other brother, whose wife and daughter were gang raped before being mercifully shot by Saddam's Mujahedeen while he was forced to watch, before he, too, was beaten and left for dead
>
Finally, here is what the usually anti-Bush NY Times was forced to write about the June 5, 2008 Senate Select Commiittee Final Report on the Iraq war, "The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on American intelligence failures in Iraq has produced a rare and curious thing -- agreement between left and right. For opposite reasons, both are pushing the absurd notion that the report told us that President Bush was not to blame for giving Americans false information about Iraq." He, too, like you, thinks that facts can be absurd. I always thought facts were facts, and "absurd" could only apply to opinions.
>
Basically, the Senate Select Commiittee, quote, ''did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.'' This means that President Bush used the same information that every major western intelligence agency had developed and did not make up anything. I'm sorry to inform you that political judgments and opinions are not falsehoods, as you misrepresent them to be, but only when it suits your agenda.
>
What is a falsehood, however, is the following definitive statement, "The top administration officials who made the decision to take this country to war knew they were not telling the country the whole truth about what they knew or the reasons why they themselves were so intent on the invasion, despite overwhelming doubt about the legitimacy of it." Ooops, you are the one who wrote that! Sorry!
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Even though you presumably are able to read the minds of Bush administration officials to know what they knew, the Senate Select Committee, which had a significant number of Bush-haters as well, disagrees with you. Even the NY Times had to reluctantly admit this.
>
Sister Joan, How has it escaped your attention that, Saddam's brutal regime was lifted off the backs of the Iraqis in less than a month, in the spring of 2003? Imagine what Iraq could have been like by now had the Iraqi sectarian extremists then resisted the instigation by Al Qaeda and Iran, with tacit and actual moral support from people like you, and driven Al Qaeda out then as they have done now, and concentrated on making their country peaceful and productive with American aid? Look at what Japan, Germany and Italy were able to do after WW-II. But, ooops again, I keep forgetting. You would prefer everyone to be benevolent and stable like Russia, N. Korea, Iran, the old Afghanistan and Iraq, Cuba and Venezuela.
>
Sincerely,
Mario Goveia,
Perrysburg, OH
>
The truth is, the United
The truth is, the United States military is not the world's policemen and it should not be used to carry out missions better served by intelligence groups and small special forces for specific missions. The GW Bush imperial presidency should not have pushed us into the War in Iraq. Were it not for the oil in that country, we would not have done so. To fight Al Qaeda meant fighting criminals and would have involved the world's police, the FBI, to gather the intelligence and root the criminals out. It did not require our sending our troops into Iraq.
As we speak, the Pentagon is arranging to troop down in Iraq because we are losing in Afghanistan. Soldiers who have been on several active tours of duty will be going probably to Afghanistan because we have spread our forces too thin in Iraq. Is it fair that we require of these soldiers so much, when it was known that this was not going to be enough to carry out these missions on two fronts? GW Bush got us in there in Iraq, into a totally unnecessary war, without asking the larger questions of costs, who was going to pay, how it was going to be paid for, without a timetable, without regard for what the rest of the world thought about it.
Ooops to you. We are in a very serious situation here in which you might think that our military can keep our country free, but that costs a lot of freedom. We need to reassess just what that freedom really means when the costs are in human lives and debt and when we ask the military to keep us free. Consider who will be paying for this huge unnecessary military adventure into Iraq.
Sr. Joan is right in her analysis of GW Bush. You sir, need to look in the mirror and ask if it is worth our freedom to send our military into a sovereign country but then squawk when Russia does the same.
About the Russia that sent
About the Russia that sent its army into the sovereign state of Georgia, is it not the very same Russia that
--opposed the U.S. sending its military into the sovereign state of Iraq?
--opposes U.N. interventions in the sovereign states of Sudan (Darfur) and Zimbabwe?
--but didn’t oppose helping the regions of Abkazhia and South Ossetia break away in the first place from the sovereign state of Georgia?
Is this the Russia you’re talking about?
Joe536
I can understand GWB
I can understand GWB uttering nonsense. I have come to expect it. But I was totally puzzled when I learned that Condy reiterated the rhetoric in a press conference this week (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpR0734iU7w&watch_response) As much as I disagree with her misplaced loyalty, I always credited Condy for being smarter than her CEO. Could something in their diets be causing such a total lack of self awareness?
Don't know if anyone saw Bob Costas interview GWB at the Olympics. If not, then you can watch it on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keN12U2coK8
"First of all, Bush states, "I don't see America having problems."
Whew! What a relief!
One+Heart
Live in peace. Forgive everybody.
For a indepth analysis of
For a indepth analysis of the parallels please read Stephen Zunes at Commondreams.org:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/15/11000/
The name of the article is _US role in Georgian Crisis_.
I am acutely aware that the first time I ever read Zunes was in NCR but I see much more of him at Commondreams.org. Here's hoping that NCR might see fit to print this in some form even though it is pretty "hardcore" policy analysis.
Right on, Sr. Joan. We need all the voices on this perspective that we can get.
Hi Sr. Joan. Sometimes I
Hi Sr. Joan.
Sometimes I wonder, are more people out of synch with reality by choice or by default? When I heard the comments of the President I was left flabbergasted. Like you I had some inkling that there was a certain ambiguity or something about the words and their meaning. Words are a key part of my work. Exploring the meaning for people and their use of words to build themselves and each other up and support each other in coping with their individual life's situation and circumstances.
Whenever I hear people denying the real events and relationships they are encountering in life it sets me wondering. What are they afraid to face? What is blocking their view of this situation which prevents their awareness and potential ability to deal with this situation? At this time I am wondering what are we afraid to face, not just our Leaders, be it in Politics or indeed Religion, but we ourselves the ordinary, lay people? What about our situation or indeed our perception of our situation, so frightens us that we are in denial? I wonder? But mostly I pray that our eyes, ears, minds and hearts will open to see and hear and that we will take the most appropriate response and soon. It is our choice to repond or remain in denial. The consequences are facing us all, whatever we choose.
Sadly and scarily, Sr. Joan
Sadly and scarily, Sr. Joan Chittister is hitting the nail on the head (male on the head?): "Words are meaningless now."
Only "now" has been going on for sometime.
With the explosion of the communications industry, words are meaningless. Advertising, political campaigning, religious telepastors and mega churches--words are meaningless. The Tower of Babel has been resurrected.
Sr. Chittister's comment about President Bush's Rose Garden condemnation of Russia is the only thing I've seen written that confronts the President's hypocrisy. I heard Ms. Condolezza Rice say the same party line about Russia invading a sovereign nation without provocation or justification, and wondered how she can do that with a straight face? How can anyone suggest she is governmental material (i.e. McCain's administration), or that she is a person of character? Let alone, how can she dare say that in the face of Iraq.
"Words are meaningless." That is scary. Who do we believe? Who do we listen to? When the Enquirer magazine reports the "true story" about John Edwards, when tabloids become the investigative journals, what does that say about the mainstream media, about the CBS's and NY Times, etc.? When religious publications distort the meaning of words or use them to promote their own agenda--however noble or prescient--words become meaningless.
Thank you advertisers, lawyers, bishops, politicians and those purveyors of distortions, the spin doctors. Words are meaningless. Where have you gone George Orwell?
Thank you, Sr. Chittister. The silence in prayer and meditation is a deeper, cleaner and more honest means of communicating.
So it seems that Americans
So it seems that Americans do it, Chinese do it, Australians do it and I expect that politicians across the Globe spin their spin and lies.
And yes, no doubt this will continue until individuals say enough is enough, let us have some integrity. It starts with one, you, me to stop accepting such empty leadership wherever we are on this planet.
Jesus did not die for us to reach this stage of self serving hyprocricy, he died so that all people may have life and be free to live it to the full in dignity and peace.
Add ten more reads. I just
Add ten more reads. I just sent this column around to a bunch of people. We're counting the numbers who noticed, because if the American people don't even recognize the parallels we are in deep.
Keep up the good work.
Daniel Loftin- Well said!
Daniel Loftin-
Well said! America has lost its authority as a voice or morality and rightness in world affairs. My hope is that we, as a people, will take the opportunity to rebuild our cultural "house" from the foundations to the rafters. I believe that we can still start over yet again to fulfill the promise that is America to the world.
Martha E. Lujan - Thank you
Martha E. Lujan - Thank you for saying and describing what I was feeling when I saw that newscast. This morning, I heard another embarrassing comment on CNN International stating that the Catholic Church "warns women not to wear provocative clothing that will cause men to violate their person." I felt stunned. In addition, we women are being told to be careful to avoid making provocative 'glances' at men. Next, we'll be wearing a sheet with a hole for seeing out and we'll be considered property and silenced. When will the double standard stop? Men need to hear that they are responsible for their own actions and need to learn self-control.
Sister Joan, I think that
Sister Joan, I think that you misunderstand: according to the prevailing American religion known as "American Exceptionalism", America is allowed to do anything it wants. America can bomb, invade, and torture without compunction because, according to the tenets of "American Exceptionalism", America, by definition, can do no wrong. America may waterboard and otherwise inflict pain upon its captives, but when George W.Bush says "We don't torture", that ends the discussion. And anybody who suggests that America is capable of doing wrong is labeled a traitor by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the other right-wing gasbags.
However, other nations, being populated by mere mortals, are capable of wrongdoing and must be called to account when they do so. By America, of course.
Watching GWB on the news I
Watching GWB on the news I thought maybe I was losing my mind, so I'm glad someone else noticed! I'm torn between outrage, and feeling sorry for someone so obviously out of touch with reality. Or is this group of people so perverse that they deliberately and knowingly speak such trash and think the world is stupid enough to support it?
absolutely! I have been
absolutely!
I have been reading in the international news just this point regarding our GOP administration's continued shameless arrogance and ingenuous irony. The world press wanted to know why no one in the USA notes this as well. Now thanks to Sister Joan we have, but only by her astute wisdom and perspicacity.
love thy enemy
Why do we always look to
Why do we always look to religions to justify our actions?
Ever since the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches were formed through government co-option, religions have had an easy excuse to justify all forms of violence.
Now, I don't know if Jesus was the only begotten son of God (and I don't know of anyone who knows beyond a shadow of doubt) or was made to appear so in order to separate the actions of Jesus from human experiences. If Jesus told his followers to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors, he wasn't offering it as an option. Jesus was a person who did not believe in following unjust laws. Jesus was destined to collide with the law of the land and because he taught nonviolence, he couldn't use violence in his defense. Because Jesus was killed for following his own beliefs, Constantine needed a way to keep his followers from opposing unjust laws.
Because most of Christianity stems from Constantine's churches, belief that Jesus' death was a sacrifice keeps his followers from taking his teachings to heart. If Jesus was a man, and people believed that, he would have told them that the message was more important than the individual. Jesus would have shown us something that God appearing as a man couldn't show us, and that is faith. If Jesus was super human, he would have only been doing the will of God with no choice.
I hope you don't get the impression that I am against Jesus. If Jesus did half of what the bible tells us then we are falling way short of our potential and real believers.
Peace!