November 5, 2010

Liberty

The United States portrays itself as leading the world to

its destined utopia of freedom, democracy and equality.

President George W. Bush, one month before invading Iraq: “Freedom . . .

is God’s gift to humanity. (The nation which embodies freedom,

should bear this gift) to every human being in the whole world.”¹

President-elect Barack Obama, the night of his election: (American

citizens have been able) to put their hands on the arc of history

and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”²

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “Liberty, democracy, justice and

opportunity underlie our priorities . . . We have it within our power to start the world over again . . . (and) are called upon to use that power.”³

Assistant Secretary Esther Brimmer: “Our Declaration of Independence,

the Constitution, the Bill of Rights . . . are a light that shines to all

who seek freedom, fairness, equality and dignity in the world.”⁴

. . .

But what kind of freedom is it that requires its imposition on

foreign nations by means of death-dealing technological monsters,

such as Abrams tanks, cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells?⁵

How tyrannical is a freedom which depends for its security on the

maintenance of 716 overseas military bases, and, since 1945,

100 military interventions, with 49 countries bombed or invaded?⁶

What is the nature of a democracy that, in the past seven

and a half years, has caused the severe maiming or death of

2,541,000 Iraqis and 36,300 of its own young generation?⁷

Is there freedom in the market place, if, in the home country,

some 15,000,000 to 26,000,000 are unemployed, and across

the world, 1,020,000,000 do not have enough food to eat?⁸

What type of justice boasts of imprisonment without trial,

military tribunals, extra-judicial killings, extraordinary renditions,

covert operations, secret prisons, drone attacks and torture?⁹

Where is the equality, when the richest 1 percent of households

owns one third of a nation’s private wealth – more than the

combined wealth of the 90 percent poorest households?¹⁰

. . .

To think that the State can bestow freedom is to make the

same error as to think that the State will not interfere

with one’s freedom. Both are State-sponsored myths.¹¹

The freedom which is able to resist tyranny, and demand

democracy, can only be that freedom which arises very

gradually, painfully, in solitude, from the depth of one’s soul.

The State can no more give liberty than it can coerce one into or out

of it, because dissent, even unto death, must always be the choice.

This is the demand of liberty, democracy, justice, equality,

compassion, community, non-violence and real security.

We need not bend the arc of history toward our own interests.

The arc will bend thus by itself, easily, bathed in our own morality.

Notes

1. Stam, Juan, 2003. “The religious Language of George W. Bush, by Rowland Croucher and others – a theological and political Analysis.” John Mark Ministries. December 11.

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/11826.htm. Accessed November 7, 2010.

P. 7: “Before the Association of Religious Broadcasters, (President George W. Bush) declared: ‘We must also remember our calling as a blessed nation to make the world better . . . and confound the designs of evil men . . . Freedom is not America’s gift to the world. It is God’s gift to humanity. (Therefore, the nation which embodies freedom should bear this gift) to every human being in the whole world.”

Northcott, Michael. 2004/2007. An angel directs the storm – apocalyptic religion and American Empire. London, UK: SCM-Canterbury Press.

Quotation, pp. 5 and 180.

Fineman, Howard, with Tamara Lipper, Martha Brant, Suzanne Smalley and Richard Wolffe, 2003. “Bush and God – a higher Calling: It is his defining Journey – from Reveler to Revelation. A Biography of his Faith, and how he wields it as he leads a Nation on the Brink of War.” Newsweek. March 10.

http://www.newsweek.com/2003/03/09. Accessed November 5, 2010.

P. 1: Bush’s speech was given on February 10, 2003, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, to the Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters.

2. Sweet, Lynn. 2008. “President-elect Obama’s Grant Park Speech. Text.” November 5.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/11. Accessed November 5, 2010.

P. 1: “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer . . . It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve, to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”

Bacevich, Andrew. 2010, Washington rules – America’s path to permanent war. New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt/Metropolitan.

Quotation, pp. 19 and 251. President-elect Obama gave the speech in Grant Park, Chicago, IL, November 5, 2008.

3. United States Government, Department of State, 2009. “Foreign Policy Address at the Council on Foreign Relations, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., July 15, 2009.”

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/july/126071.htm. Accessed November 7, 2010.

P. 3: “Liberty, democracy, justice and opportunity underlie our priorities.”

P. 9: “More than 230 years ago, Thomas Paine said, ‘We have it within our power to start the world over again.’ Today, in a new and very different era, we are called upon to use that power.”

Bacevich, Andrew. 2010, Washington rules – America’s path to permanent war. New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt/Metropolitan.

Quotation, pp. 19-20 and 251.

4. Free Speech Radio News. 2010. “U.S. Officials defend the Country’s human Rights Record at the United Nations.” November 5.

http://fsrn.org/audio. Accessed November 6, 2010.

Pp. 1-2: On November 5, 2010, in Geneva, Switzerland, Department of State, Assistant Secretary Esther Brimmer opened the United Nations Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights: United States. Brimmer began, “As President Obama has said, our country’s ‘Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are not simply words written into aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in our country, and a light that shines to all who seek freedom, fairness, equality and dignity in the world.’”

5. Northcott, Michael. 2004/2007. An angel directs the storm – apocalyptic religion and American Empire. London, UK: SCM-Canterbury Press.

P. 130: “But what kind of freedom is it that demands so much blood spilt, and what kind of freedom is it that requires that it is imposed on foreign nations through the technological superiority of Abrams tanks and the death-dealing weaponry of cluster bombs and Depleted Uranium shells? It is clearly a different kind of freedom to Christian freedom, which involves the avoidance of violent means and violent ends . . .”

Wikipedia, 2010. “M1 Abrams.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Updated November 5. Accessed November 5, 2010.

6. Johnson, Chalmers. 2010. Dismantling the empire – America’s last best hope. New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt/Metropolitan.

P. 127: “According to the Defense Department’s Base Structure Report, for fiscal year 2009, the Pentagon owned or rented 716 overseas bases and another 4,863 in the United States and its territories.”

Northcott, Michael. 2004/2007. An angel directs the storm – apocalyptic religion and American Empire. London, UK: SCM-Canterbury Press.

P. 145: “America initiated more than one hundred military campaigns since 1945 in defense of its ‘interests,’ and is the only nation ever to have launched both chemical and nuclear weapons from airborne bombers against civilian populations.”

P. 158: “America since 1945 has bombed or invaded 49 countries.”

7. Unknown News. 2010. “At least 919,967 people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the U.S. and Coalition Attacks, based on lowest credible Estimates.” August 10.

http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html. Accessed November 5, 2010.

P. 1: Iraq, killed and seriously injured, 2,540,687.

U.S., killed and seriously injured, 36,296.

[This ratio is (2,540,687 / 36,296) = 70:1].

8. Uliasz, Erik, 2010. “The unemployment Rate in the United States is manipulated by Republicans and Democrats.” philly2philly.com. July 27.

http://www.phillly2philly.com/politics_community/politics. Accessed November 5, 2010.

Pp. 3-4: “U-3 is the familiar official unemployment rate, measuring the number of people who are out of work but actively looking for jobs, as a percentage of the total labor force . . . U-6 includes all marginally attached workers as well as workers who are employed part-time for economic reasons (i.e., workers who would prefer full-time work, but have not been able to find it). U-6 is the broadest measure of unemployment the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.”

Wikipedia, 2010. “List of Countries by Labor Force.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Updated July 4. Accessed November 5, 2010.

P. 1: United States, Labor Force, 2009, estimated, 154,500,000.

Free Speech Radio News. 2010. “The U.S. Federal Reserve’s $600 billion Effort to kick-start the U.S. Economy.” November 5.

http://fsrn.org/archive/all/2010/11. Accessed November 6, 2010.

P. 1: “The Labor Department announced . . . today . . . (that) unemployment remains steady, with the official rate at 9.6 percent, and the real jobless rate, categorized as the ‘U-6,’ at 17 percent.”

Therefore, the U-3 is (9.6 x 154,500,000) /100 = 14,832,000, and

the U-6 is (17 x 154,500,000) / 100 = 26,265,000.

Worldhunger. 2010. “World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics 2010.” World Hunger Education Service. May 7.

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger. Accessed November 5, 2010.

P. 1: “Malnutrition is a general term that indicates a lack of some or all nutritional elements necessary for human health. There are two basic types of malnutrition. The first and most important is protein-energy malnutrition – the lack of enough protein (from meat and other sources) and food that provides energy (measured in calories) which all of the basic food groups provide. This is the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed. The second type of malnutrition, also very important, is micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) deficiency.”

“The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 1.02 billion people are under-nourished, a sizable increase from its 2006 estimate of 854 million people . . . The figure of 1.02 billion is 15 percent of the estimated world population of 6.8 billion. Nearly all of the under-nourished are in developing countries.”

9. Johnson, Chalmers. 2010. Dismantling the empire – America’s last best hope. New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt/Metropolitan.

P. 4: “During Bush’s tenure, the armed forces were authorized to torture Muslims captured virtually anywhere on earth; the Department of Justice turned a blind eye to the clandestine electronic surveillance of the general public; the Central Intelligence Agency was given carte blanche to kidnap terror suspects in other countries and transfer them to regimes where they could be interrogated under torture, as well as to assassinate supposed terror suspects just about anywhere on the planet. From Afghanistan and Iraq to Lithuania, Thailand and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the United States set up an offshore system of (in)justice, including ‘black sites’ (secret CIA prisons) that put many of its most outrageous acts beyond oversight or the reach of the law – any law.”

10. Working Group on Extreme Inequality. Undated. “How unequal are we? – Inequality Index.”

http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8. Accessed November 5, 2010.

P. 5: “Wealth is equivalent to ‘net worth,’ which is equal to assets minus liabilities.”

Pp. 5-6: “In 2007, the latest year for which figures are available from the Federal Reserve Board, the richest 1 percent of U.S. households owned 33.8 percent of the nation’s private wealth. That’s more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent.”

11. Northcott, Michael. 2004/2007. An angel directs the storm – apocalyptic religion and American Empire. London, UK: SCM-Canterbury Press.

Pp. 53 and 186: “That the world should give the church its freedom was to Dietrich Bonhoeffer a heresy analogous to the Nazi heresy that required the church to affirm Aryanism and acknowledge the Fuhrer. For Bonhoeffer, the freedom of a church that is capable of resisting tyranny is not given to it by the political power, or ‘the world,’ but is rather a gift of God and a product of the preaching of the Word of God.”

Wikipedia 2010. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Updated November 6. Accessed November 6, 2010.

Pp. 1, 5-6 and 12-13: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr, participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism, and founding member of the Confessing Church. Bonhoeffer was executed 23 days before the surrender of the Nazis. His view of the role of Christianity in the secular world is very influential.

In 1934, in Barmen, Germany, with his colleague Martin Niemoller (1892-1984), Bonhoeffer founded the Confessing Church, in opposition to the Nazi-supported German Christian Movement. The Barmen Declaration, drafted by the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) and adopted by the Confessing Church, insisted that Christ, not the Fuhrer, was the head of the Church.

Bonhoeffer’s life as a pastor and theologian of great intellect, deep spirituality, one who lived as he preached, and one who was martyred because of his opposition to Nazism, has been a source of inspiration to Christians across the world, including Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-).

Bonhoeffer argued that Christians should not retreat from the world but act within it. In the face of the Nazi threat, Bonhoeffer’s position differed diametrically from that of the German Protestant Church.

References

Principal Reference:

Northcott, Michael. 2004/2007. An angel directs the storm – apocalyptic religion and American Empire. London, UK: SCM-Canterbury Press.

Northcott (p. 122) recalls that when the Pharisees asked Jesus “when the Kingdom of God was coming,” Jesus answered, “The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is,’ or ‘There!’ for behold the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:20-21).

Northcott (p. 152) points to the Old Testament for a theological critique of imperial violence and war, and to the New Testament for Jesus’ teaching and example that evil and the powers are defeated not by violence but by a preparedness to face even death rather than respond to evil with evil.

Other References:

Bacevich, Andrew. 2010, Washington rules – America’s path to permanent war. New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt/Metropolitan.

http://www.newsweek.com/2003/03/09. Accessed November 5, 2010.

Free Speech Radio News. 2010. November 5.

“The U.S. Federal Reserve’s $600 billion Effort to kick-start the U.S. Economy.”

http://fsrn.org/archive/all/2010/11. Accessed November 6, 2010.

“U.S. Officials defend the Country’s human Rights Record at the United Nations.”

http://fsrn.org/audio. Accessed November 6, 2010.

Johnson, Chalmers. 2010. Dismantling the empire – America’s last best hope. New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt/Metropolitan.

Stam, Juan, 2003. “The religious Language of George W. Bush, by Rowland Croucher and others – a theological and political Analysis.” John Mark Ministries. December 11.

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/11826.htm. Accessed November 7, 2010.

Sweet, Lynn. 2008. “President-elect Obama’s Grant Park Speech. Text.” November 5.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/11. Accessed November 5, 2010.

Uliasz, Erik, 2010. “The unemployment Rate in the United States is manipulated by Republicans and Democrats.” philly2philly.com. July 27.

http://www.phillly2philly.com/politics_community/politics. Accessed November 5, 2010.

United States Government, Department of State, 2009. “Foreign Policy Address at the Council on Foreign Relations, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., July 15, 2009.”

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/july/126071.htm. Accessed November 7, 2010.

Unknown News. 2010. “At least 919,967 people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the U.S. and Coalition Attacks, based on lowest credible Estimates.” August 10.

http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html. Accessed November 5, 2010.

Wikipedia, 2010.

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Updated November 6. Accessed November 6, 2010.

“M1 Abrams.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Updated November 5. Accessed November 5, 2010.

“List of Countries by Labor Force.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Updated July 4. Accessed November 5, 2010.

Working Group on Extreme Inequality. Undated. “How unequal are we? – Inequality Index.”

http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8. Accessed November 5, 2010.

Worldhunger. 2010. “World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics 2010.” World Hunger Education Service. May 7.

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger. Accessed November 5, 2010.

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