G-d as Commander-in-Chief?

I spent 3 years studying theology in NYC and at Oxford. I had been planning to teach theology -- in my family tradition. My studies revealed shocking information about the origins and histories of our three major Western religions which diverted me to teaching philosophy instead.

The ancient view of G-d was that he was quite literally commander-in-chief in fighting wars. If a war was lost, the Hebrew prophets proposed that G-d was punishing his people for their misdeeds.

The most tolerant of the three religions was Islam. The most brutal was Christianity. The Jews were the targets of both with far too many pogroms over the millennia, thanks to the anti-Semitism of St. Paul (See his Letter to the Romans for that attitude as well as murderous anti-gay sentiments).

While all three of the religions had good things to say about the care and treatment of fellow humans, war was very much part of a tribal game -- the Crusades and such and the murderous wars both between the religions and within them. Those Christian soldiers particularly always marching off to war. Something very Roman was embedded in the Christian world view which was all too readily unleashed with sometimes the weakest of excuses -- the whole colonial expansion of the Europeans round the world with killings freely justified to secure booty.

I was warned off theology by my leading theological teachers such as Reinhold Niebuhr who foresaw the Billy Graham to Sarah Palin evolution at its roots.

It is ironic that right wing Christians are supporting the Israeli 'recapture' of Israel in that they believe Jews who do not convert to Christianity when the Christ figure returns will be condemned to hell.

Christianity is a religion of death as well as love of neighbor. Jesus was crucified as a 'terrorist' of his own times.

And so it goes.
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
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Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

Testing

Ed

State Budget Cuts = Job Cuts

More than half our states are being forced to slash their budgets in light of tax losses with the recession:

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711

Needless to say such budget cuts will mean the loss of jobs in nearly every area from medicine and teaching to repairing our crumbling infrastructures (bridges, roads, etc.). I see far too few people drawing this connection and much is being done behind closed doors. Illinois will presumably grab the opportunity to fill one of its failing prisons with Gitmo types. Much needed jobs will be created by this effort. We shall have to see who wins out -- the job seekers or our Republican terror artists? I wonder whether they will ever be willing to draw the dots together to see where where our national problems lie -- along with the best possible solutions.

Personally I favor more, not less, employment by our government agencies -- a contemporary version of the WPA (Works Project Administration) which put many to work during the Roosevelt years. It sits there as a model from our last Depression:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

As a social/political/legal philosopher recently retired, I constantly
despair over the cheap sloganeering that replaces facts and connecting essential dots to see the whole picture.

There are a few sane voices around, but they are all too often drowned out by the sloganeers (e.g. "Cut your taxes!") How many really see that cutting taxes (particularly of the super rich and the greedy corporations) is the equivalent of cutting our own economic throats!

Help!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

Women Power

During my teaching career -- 1963-2007 -- I have watched the roles of women change radically. From "barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen" mixed with low level jobs (secretaries and such), I have seen my students and others move on into the professions, academic fields from which they were virtually banned, and a host of creative and constructive roles both within and beyond our nation.

My mother had been trained as a teacher and had begun teaching when she married my father in the midst of the Depression. Last time around only one job was allowed per family to spread employment and she never resumed her career. Such is a part of the explanation of our unemployment problems today. Women are strong competitors with their male counterparts. I noticed that among my students -- particularly minorities -- they were far more likely to get this or that job. The figures now confirm my impressions.

I cannot say how proud I am of women doing their things these days. But obviously one of the employment problems in addition to our corporations shipping so many jobs over to China and elsewhere is that there are more people seeking jobs than those available -- particularly in our recession.

I could not recommend the solution that my mother faced to solve the job problem, but we had better look to the real reasons rather than blaming this pol or another for what is a universal global problem. There simply is not enough work to go around -- particularly physical labor. I enjoyed doing such jobs summers as a student. There is nothing more satisfying than making something -- I made houses among other things.

Where do we go from here now to generate enough jobs, I do not know. Woman power has entered the picture and nations and communities that utilize it prosper.

And so it goes. What do you think?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

Killing -- Here, There, and Elsewhere

During the Vietnam war we would boast almost daily of the numbers of enemies we had killed -- quite often vague and exaggerated figures.

Now with particularly Afghanistan our reports of enemies killed are generally sotto voce. As often as not our 'enemies' have turned out to be a wedding party or some such hit by our drones from on high.

'Terror' is a word that has never been clearly defined. But I can think of nothing more 'terrible' than innocent civilians being killed and wounded. Particularly in Afghanistan where there has never been a strong central government and thousands of villages have their chiefs in charge of things versus the corrupt Karzai 'government', I cannot imagine any way that we can sort out friends from enemies. The Afghans don't like being run by outside powers and have a history of wearing them down and driving them out.

The only thing we can be sure of there is that we are killing 'them' -- whoever 'them' is -- and that they (?) are killing us.

People wonder why Obama has paused to figure out what to do in this misbegotten situation. There is no nation to be formed nor leaders to form one. The only game is town is not a 'war', but rather killing, here, there, and elsewhere.

What do you think?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

Afghanistan?????

Frankly, I find myself totally conflicted over Afghanistan. On the one hand I feel that we owe them much, having promised (falsely) that we would after our invasion help them reconstruct their ravaged country and finances -- which we then diverted from with the Iraq invasion. On the other hand I see no way to unify an infinitely divided Afghanistan or to win a 'war' there. The longer we remain in large military numbers, the more lives -- ours and theirs -- will be pointlessly taken and vast numbers wounded and their homes and means of self-support (yes, illegal from our perspective) destroyed.

Where should we go, then, from here. My inclination is to tell the Afghans and our fellow Americans that we are planning an orderly withdrawal of our military while trying to restore some of the damage we have done while we are still there and thereafter. Obviously Karzai -- our puppet -- is hopeless and scarcely loved by his fellow Afghans -- and the Taliban is not a problem we can resolve.

More important are our relations with and support for other nations both in the area and elsewhere (particularly Pakistan). With its nuclear weapons (as those also of North Korea and and potentially Iran) we have a massive set of challenges to face and vital problems to solve. Afghanistan is simply a distraction from vastly more important things upon which our attention should be focused. I wish that we had a Republican Party that could and would join in our national mission outlined above rather than attempting to reestablish itself by sabotaging Obama at every turn that it can. Terrorism in a nuclear era is no game. It is the real 'war' that faces us all!!!

What do you think?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

Death Penalty in America

We are about to execute another murderer tonight. Presumably we sometimes put to death innocent people -- or so cases have indicated.

As the site below indicates we are seventh behind not the most to be admired nations in this practice -- the only democracy in the lot.

The only good thing we have accomplished is halting several years back executing juveniles. Our numbers are declining.

Bush as Governor of Texas presided over half our number one year -- 37 of 74 with not one commutation by him.

Is it not about time we joined civilized nations in abolishing this practice?

It has been a hard day for me, so I am going to leave it here as a question for us to answer both together and individually.

**********************************

# 1 China: 470 executions
# 2 Iran: 317 executions
# 3 Saudi Arabia: 143 executions
# 4 Pakistan: 135 executions
# 5 Congo, Democratic Republic of the: 100 executions
# 6 Egypt: 48 executions
# 7 United States: 42 executions

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_exe-crime-executions
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

Bill Buckley Helped Joe Lieberman Defeat Lowell Weicker

Lowell Weicker was a moderate Republican Senator of Connecticut when he was defeated by Joe Lieberman with the strong assistance of Bill Buckley. Buckley later came to regret his effort when Lieberman came out full force for the Iraq war.

We too often forget that conservatism in this country was launched by Buckley -- National Review and many other efforts both up front and behind the scenes. I would imagine that he might today be somewhat appalled by the monster he has spawned. As the Iraq rejection indicated, Buckley became more moderate towards his last days. Still the damage had been done. I recall Buckley's Yale attack on such at Yale as Sid Lovett who had been jailed for resisting the draft in W.W.I. and who was long time Yale Chaplain. I believe that God and Man at Yale was Buckley's first book and he attended to all things that happened there where he had taught Spanish as well as being a student:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_and_Man_at_Yale

One should not be surprised to see the Joe Lieberman of today -- doing his best to sabotage Obama (liberal programs). It is amazing to me with his history that he actually got to run as a Democratic vice presidential candidate. It all goes to show how short range people's political memories are.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

What Is the Republican Party?

I grew up in a liberal Republican family -- Republicans in those days were decent people who supported the public interests and human rights in contrast with the Southern Democrats who were at the heart of American racism. Robert A. Taft, for example, who was defeated by Eisenhower in the Republican primaries, became a supporter of public housing projects when he discovered that private builders could not afford low cost housing. One project here is NYC is named after him.

One should note the game that Bloomberg and others are playing with the claim that they are supporting "affordable housing." If one checks the specifics, one discovers that the bulk of this stuff is single rooms fit for seniors and very little, if any at all, for families. Such we discovered was the case with the luxury housing lease that St. John's granted to a national builder in our neighborhood. So much for Cathedrals, too.

Back to the Republicans, the withdrawal of the Republican candidate in favor of a Conservative party nominee in upstate N.Y. looks to be all too symbolic of more things to come. One is hard put to identify leadership of the Republicans. They seem to be unified only in their attacks on Obama and other Democrats attempting to reform our plutocracy which has nearly bankrupted our country -- the Bush economic plan -- lower taxes for the super wealthy and let corporations and large banks run wild in pursuit of profits -- not earned but conned out of our deregulated financial system.

I constantly see and hear of comfortable luxury activities of our super wealthy while the rest of us fear job losses and pension and wage reductions. It is pretty clear which party is on what side. And furthermore our super wealthy largely control the media to which most people have access and so can sell their operations to those without access to the real facts.

Terror begins at home. There is no need for our enemies to do much more than let our country continue to suffer from the gross financial injustices promoted by the Republicans -- or should we call them the Conservative Party now? This Conservative Party looks to want to save little more than the vast pay outs to its supporters. Perhaps there is no longer what we used to call a Republican Party? Words get terribly distorted from their original meanings these days -- and maybe this is just one more instance of such misuse of language.

The answer to the subject question of this post is: "Who knows?

Have any bright ideas? If so please share them.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

How Many Killed Today?

It is a well known fact that our leading newspapers are laying off reporters who are qualified to do in depth research. The news that reaches most Americans comes from TV and radio channels focused on advertising catching stuff -- the latest child murder, serial killers, and occasional news flashes or largely brief and interrupted interviews with some knowledgeable and other intentionally deceiving commentators.

Personally I scan a series of net sources each day that I can trust and listen to a few in depth interview programs and then do my blogs. The knowledgeable people have made it clear that Afghanistan is not Iraq. Afghans for the most part distrust and resist the notion of a national government and have driven out every external 'colonizer' or even well intentioned influences such as that of the Obama people. But one has to doubt that there is any way to accomplish our goals of a unified and peace-oriented country there. This is not a country. It is a melange of conflicting forces -- tribal to village dominated. The landscape might have been designed to protect such as the murderous Taliban and put our troops at risk.

Obama is now being accused by the right wingers -- who seem to have pretty well taken over the Republican Party -- of delaying sending yet more troops there as cannon folder for the resisters. It has obviously come clear to them that the more of ours they can kill or maim, the greater will be the American public's resistance to our continuing on there. As of today we have had 911 of ours killed and many of our allies:

http://www.icasualties.org/OEF/

As of 9/1/09 2,914 had been gravely wounded:

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/01/wounded-gis-in-afghanistan-survivors-more-seriously-than-in-ira/

It no surprise that our troops there wonder whether Americans have forgotten these losses:

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/09/12/0912warwounded.html

Obama was criticized for wasting time joining families whose dead were being returned the other night. Bush had forbidden any picturing of coffins coming home. Obama lifted that cover-up which prevented Americans from taking seriously the costs of our misbegotten 'wars'.

I would not want to be Obama trying to figure where we go from here. I see no way to win the 'game' there. Perhaps Americans need to be diverted by sports to keep our sanity.

Help! What do you think?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]