50 Bullets and a Wake Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Eracism, Fighting Tyranny, National Interest.add a comment
I’m not sure if we’re in a new Reconstruction era that’s falling apart, or if our country has fallen back into Jim Crow laws and social sharecropping, but if it’s not 40 acres and a mule perhaps it’s only New York.
This weekend 23 year old Sean Bell was shot and killed on the eve of his wedding. The police fired fifty, yes 50, shots into his vehicle. Bell and his friends were unarmed. Yes, you guessed it, they are also Black.
You can find the BBC story here, and the New York Times story here.
Mayor Bloomberg met with Al Sharpton and others to discuss what seems to be another example of police excessive force, racial profiling, and lack of accountability. Sharpton actually had some very poignant things to say, including:
“We prefer talking than not talking, but the object is not a conversation, the object is fairness and justice, because we’re not just interested in being treated politely, we’re interested in being treated fairly and rightly. And that will happen when police are held as accountable as anyone else.”
I wish I could say the representatives for the cops had the same integrity. Perhaps my hopes are too high:
Philip E. Karasyk, who is a lawyer for the Detectives’ Endowment Association, said, “We feel confident that once all of the facts and circumstances of this tragic incident are known, then our detectives will be exonerated.”
“This was a tragedy, but not a crime,” he said.
Here’s to integrity in the Police State that is becoming the United States of America.
To the end of racial profiling.
And the end of a system that tears down Black males, leaving the authorities of all sorts in this nation in a deified light of inculpability.
The Weak Shaming the Strong…. Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Humor, Uncategorized.add a comment
Ok, this won’t be what you thought. But in the midst of posts about Middle East David & Goliath scenarios in reverse, the lack of nuclear weapons in Iran, and forgotten African tragedies, we need something to laugh at. Sorry the quality is so bad….blame Google for not enhancing YouTube yet.
So, some context: Yes, that’s Nate Robinson. Yao Ming, meet Nate Robinson. For the record, Nate is 5′8″ and is the shortest player in the NBA. Yao is 7′6″ and is the tallest player in the NBA. Is this the Gospel being lived out in the NBA??? Crazy.
27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.
Israel Officially Occupies Private Palestinian Land Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Global Interest, Middle East Madness.2 comments
Here we go. I’m sure this article from the New York Times will cause a firestorm worldwide today, as well as tomorrow, when the report is officially released in Israel by Peace Now. If we are to truly see a peace process rooted in justice, reconciliation, and forgiveness, Israel needs to recognize the reality that thousands of Palestinians have been illegally and unfairly displaced by Israeli settlements and military posts, while Palestinian militias and organizations, along with their supporters, need to pursue nonviolent resistance rather than resorting to armed means to secure their goals. Here’s to peace, reconciliation, and a year of jubilee. Let’s see if Israel can live out its own Scriptures in the coming weeks. Here’s what we are called to pray into reality:
10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to ALL its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.
13 ” ‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.
23 ” ‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. 24 Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
35 ” ‘If any of your own people become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. 36 Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that your poor neighbors may continue to live among you. 37 You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit. 38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
So, for a people who have been delivered from slavery on many levels, this is a call. A call to Israel. A call to us. We are all foreigners and aliens in the sight of Yahweh, and we are called to remember where we came from, and to never treat anyone else the same, regardless of what our culture would say.
Here’s to shalom.
Here’s to reconciliation.
Here’s to the just and equitable redistribution of land.
Here’s to living out a Year of Jubilee in a land of sorrow and pain.
Nuclear Nihility Monday, November 20, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Global Interest, International Politics, Uncategorized.add a comment
Is it just me, or did anybody else look at this article about the lack of evidence of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and pontificate about how much wiser all of our economic, emotional, political, and physchological resources could have been spent than on the second consecutive nuclear witch-hunt in the Middle East that has turned up void of evidence? Now, I’m not necessarily pro-Iran, so conservatives, don’t get your Spin Alley panties in a wad. I’m not even contending that there are no intentions of nuclear weapon-formulation in Iran. I’m simply making an observation and brief commentary on how:
a) We live in a culture / nation of perpetual fear.
b) We suck at stewarding our resources and attention to things in the world that actually matter.
Maybe instead of bitching about the “inaccuracy” of an article, which has yet to be proven wrong, I might add, we can declare a war on poverty, hunger, AIDS, multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, fetal alcohol syndrome, maternal mortality, and cholera epidemics with all the resources we use to brandish Iran as a nuclear sentinel in the Middle East that threatens to destabilize the world. For the record, half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 dollars per day. You want to talk about destabilization, just ask a father who can’t afford to feed his family, and inquire about what that does to domestic stability. What happens when he has to leave his family, not because he’s a deadbeat, but because his love compels him to make perhaps the costliest decision he could – risking his life and his family’s immediate stability in the hope of a long term social welfare for generations to come.
Perhaps if we focused more on the economic development of the Middle East, particularly the nation of Iran, we wouldn’t have to fight about nuclear weapons because we wouldn’t hate each other so much. And children wouldn’t grow up in conditions like these:
and thus would be less likely to be disillusioned with our bloated wallets, bellies, and breasts, and would thus be less likely to want to orchestrate a violent overthrow of everything arrogantly smacked with an American flag. See the nonviolence post below for more on ways to avoid violent responses to oppression and injustice, on either side of the aisle.
Nonviolence: The Moral High Ground in a World of Shortcuts and Smart Bombs Saturday, November 18, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Fighting Tyranny, Global Interest, International Politics, Uncategorized.3 comments
Funny how Palestinian Muslims can live out the teachings of Jesus better than most of His followers. It’s ironic at best that many believers reading this story about Palestinian nonviolent resistance
automatically sympathize with Israel, and condemn the Palestinians for ’standing in the way’ of a murderous artillery strike. It doesn’t matter the enemy; killing people who advocate the killing of people to show that killing people is wrong is, well, a betrayal of any moral fiber that one individual or sovereign nation retained. If you have to stoop to acts of violence to prove your point, especially if you are the party in power or the hegemonic sovereign entity in the region (more in later posts about Jesus’ call of repentance for the poor to turn from this style of violent resistance), then you obviously are unable to either articulate your values correctly or implement your actions, policies, or those values in a way that benefits all involved, and have thus lost your moral high ground. Period. A resorting to violence is simply taking us one step closer to global suicide.
Human shields are illegal when used by sovereign nations engaged in warfare, under the 4th Article of the Geneva Conventions…except if you’re Israel. See the article here, photo below.
Yet, peaceful uncoerced civilian nonviolence shields are incredibly effective at attaining their goal, whether that be delaying an airstrike, or simply humanizing the face of what previously were (and often are – welcome to 21st century Orwellian propaganda) dehumanized people characterized as savage, bloodthirsty ‘enemy combatants’. It’s much harder to drop a bomb on someone’s house, or fire a missile through their roof when one sees those enemies’ children. See below:
And here:
Nonviolence is important on many fronts. The first is that it combats the myth of redemptive violence, which, when I get some time I’ll outline my reasoning behind what that means and how our American culture has been wooed by this, perhaps the most blatant violation of the Sermon on the Mount, so effectively.
The second is simply a moral reality. It is wrong to inflict this catastrophic damage on anyone:
And thirdly, but not necessarily lastly, nonviolent resistance has the capacity to break the self-propagating cycle of violence begetting violence. Below is a photo of a Palestinian man celebrating the slaying of an Israeli soldier in the midst of an incursion into the West Bank. In the minds of the perpetrators in this photo, the aggression of Israel, the embodiment of a juggernaut in the face of Palestine, warranted and justified the death of the invading soldiers. Self-defense? An excuse for hatred? An eye for an eye?
Jesus calls us higher.
He calls us to be the breakers of injustice, the cancellors of debts – whether racial, ethnic, physical, monetary, emotional, or spiritual. He calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. And He calls us to take up our cross, not forcibly impose their cross at whatever cost of collateral damage we choose to mete out.
Then the natural question is not a partisan asking of who is right and who is wrong in order to draw out a previously determined answer. The question is ‘Who is my enemy?’ Followed by ‘How am I treating them?’ And if you’re brave, or actually want to take Jesus seriously, ‘What cross do I need to take back from them and which do I need to shoulder myself?’, with a ‘For whom is Jesus calling me to engage in active nonviolence?’ chaser.
Here’s to active nonviolence and shalom spreading over the globe.
Blessed are you peacemakers, for you will be called sons of God.
The First War of the 21st Century Saturday, November 18, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Global Interest, Jesus.add a comment
Donald Rumsfeld quite blindly remarked in his resignation speech that
The great respect that I have for your leadership, Mr. President, in this little understood, unfamiliar war, the first war of the 21st century — it is not well-known, it was not well-understood, it is complex for people to comprehend. And I know, with certainty, that over time the contributions you’ve made will be recorded by history.
I beg to differ Mr. Secretary. This is the first war of the 21st century. Darfur. Sudan. The fight of the oppressed for autonomy and a better way of life. This isn’t a war over oil or resources. It is a war of ignorance and misunderstanding; I will give you that. However it is not an unfamiliar war. This war has faces. It has consumed generations. It has eradicated names and identities cultivated in the deep compassion of Jesus to be made in His image. They are gone, forever. This war threatens to wipe out entire people groups from the face of the planet, with the intention of them never fully propogating their likeness again. Your war intended to depose a dictator you yourself armed twenty years ago.
Jan England captures the desperation engulfing Darfur:
“[leaders] from all over the world… swore to protect civilian populations. We have a responsibility to protect. We are not living up to that responsibility in Darfur today.
“I met… yesterday women [in Darfur] who were pleading for security, who said we are abused, we are raped, we are attacked and nobody seems to want to protect us.”
The words of Solomon speak aptly and chillingly here:
1 Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
and they have no comforter.2 And I declared that the dead,
who had already died,
are happier than the living,
who are still alive.3 But better than both
is the one who has not yet been,
who has not seen the evil
that is done under the sun.4 And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
5 Fools fold their hands
and ruin themselves.6 Better one handful with tranquillity
than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind.7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:
8 There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
“and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
a miserable business!9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:10 If they fall down,
they can help each other up.
But pity those who fall
and have no one to help them up!11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
This is not a passage about ‘accountability’ in our typical understanding. This is a treatise against power, it’s abuse, and those who look on and accumulate wealth while others suffer. It is a call to comfort the oppressed in the midst of the power wielded to exploit them. It is a call to compassion, to suffer with the marginalized. Even if they don’t have oil. Even if they are Black. Even if they are Muslims. Will our generation answer this call? Or will our generation sit back and toil for self-aggrandizement and the accumulation of wealth, or will our identity by that of Comforters of the Oppressed?
The Joys of Satire… Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Global Interest, Humor, W.add a comment
You know, sometimes you need a good laugh, especially when your Blunderer in Chief can’t get all the way through a sentence, let alone avoid decimating sovereign nations….
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….which leads us to Bush’s New Iraq Study Group To Brainstorm New Names for Old Iraq Policy…
“I’m really excited about this process,” said Bush after the meeting. “We’re really thinking outside the box this time. In fact, we’ve firebombed the box and begun the process of rebuilding it with the help of private contractors.”
Regardless of the partisan bickering around them, members of the study group will continue in their dogged quest for just the right combination of platitudes that will make the unwinnable quagmire in Iraq seem more palitable[sic] (damn satire bastards can’t spell…must be a disillusioned Pubby). With their help, the administration could finally put forth a successful PR campaign to help Americans embrace the undeniable indefiniteness of the war in Iraq.
“The most important thing is that we keep politics out of this and work together to find a solution,” said Bush. “Otherwise people will catch on and start demanding actual progress in Iraq, and we cannot have that.”
Enjoy.
Anybody Want to Accompany Me to Somalia? Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Global Interest, Poverty Sucks.2 comments
No, that wasn’t a blank check proposition….hmmmm…….
The BBC is running this article about horrendous flooding in Somali refugee camps in eastern Kenya….yet another news story you will not see on American cable news. And, if reported, Fox News would likely be reporting about how lazy those black Somali folk are to not predict and respond to that flooding disaster preemptively, while also endorsing W’s ‘hatred of black people‘, saying that the Somalis shouldn’t have killed our 19 troops in 1993 (though we killed over 1,000 of their citizens), or else we’d help them. Oh wait….W just weighed in with a statement….
But back to the real issues. I recently received an offer to go to a refugee camp on the Ethiopia-Sudanese border this summer….anybody want to extend that to an East Africa Refugee Camp service ministry? We could hit up Ethiopia, the Sudan, throw in some Darfur action, then tack over to Eritrea, Djibouti, down into either the borderlands of Somalia or finish up in the refugee camps of Kenya?
I’ll post an application if you want…
Mission Accomplished in Afghanistan? Sunday, November 12, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in International Politics, The Administration, W.add a comment
Does anybody remember Afghanistan? You know, that nation we pumped millions of dollars into a quarter century ago….yes, that CIA-aided Bin Laden guy we trained? The Taliban government we helped install? (such striking similarities to Iraq…)
Well, looks like another 4,000 people will die this year in Afghanistan. That’s a fourfold increase this year. Way to go, W. “Stay the Course”. Bastard. Once again, the “right” has yet to prove itself to be ‘pro-life’, but simply ‘anti-abortion’.
Here’s to caring about lives who speak different languages, worship a different God, and live a little differently than we do. Jesus, rain down your mercy on the whole nation of Afghanistan. Liberate it from our political prostitution, and from the oppression that haunts the nation from all sides of the religious, ideological, and political spectrums.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Rumsfeld: War Criminal? Saturday, November 11, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Fighting Tyranny, International Politics, Saving Democracy, The Administration.add a comment
Wow, I didn’t think folks would act this fast. But I guess I’ve been surprised before…And oh look…It’s Veteran’s Day. Too bad over 2,800 of them can’t enjoy today because they have been killed in this, the bloodletting quagmire and brainchild of Mr. Rumsfeld.
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The BBC is running this article about the possibility of Rumsfeld being indicted for crimes of sanctioning torture, among other malfeasances (and yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is Mr. Rumsfeld shaking the hand of Saddam Hussein…ever wonder where those WMD came from???). All I can say is, it’s about damn time. Finally some semblance of accountability for this unchecked rogue administration. I can’t wait to see what transpires over the next few years…this could only be the beginning….
