1
http://www.drabruzzi.com/jesus_movement.htm
I hope the irony isn't lost on you, America. "Today America is the Roman empire, and New York City is Rome itself" (John Lennon). Am I saying that Jesus and al-Qaeda were right and the U.S. and Rome were wrong? No. Am I saying that the U.S. and Rome were right and Jesus and al-Qaeda were wrong? No. I'm merely pointing out our role in this drama in the hopes that we may learn from the past. Rome maintained military dominance over Judea. All uprisings were unsuccessful. But Rome still fell, eventually, as all empires must fall. Will the U.S. fall, or will it succeed in transforming itself into a federation?
1 I think what we really need is a Department of Peace and Nonviolence like Dennis Kucinich proposed that can employ teams of anthropologists to study different cultures and determine how we can best work with them for shared prosperity. Havoc has occurred in the past through our involving ourselves without sensitivity. For example, we have provided countries that don't need grain with our grain that we've wanted to get rid of and it has been detrimental to their economies-their grain merchants go out of business because we've saturated the market. Also, in a lot of cultures gift-giving is a way of showing dominance, and an inability to reciprocate is a source of shame. And so in trying to provide aid to other countries, we sometimes breed resentment. But non-involvement is often not an option at this point-since we've already transformed the countries in question through our economic exploitation. So the question becomes, what is the most effective way to extend the benefits of our system to those cultures we've already involved that leads them to become self-sufficient and powerful but also peaceful members of the world community? Also, as regards MacDonald's, I'm not unconcerned or insensitive to how our method of raising beef has contributed to the climate crisis. Nor am I unconcerned with Nike's use of sweatshops. A Department of Peace and Nonviolence needs to be staffed by critical thinkers who can help us build a sustainable and happy future with the other countries of the world.
2 One extremely important piece of this, as Harris himself notes later, is getting off of an oil based economy that empowers these despots. We must become self-sufficient through the development and use of green energy if we, as a civilization, are going to survive.
3 And of course, our concept of what constitutes being an innocent here is, like always, highly convenient and self-serving. In that our oppression of Muslim countries is primarily economic in its nature, and in that those that worked in the World Trade Centers were essentially soldiers on the front lines for our economic policies, it seems strange to call them innocents. I didn't want those people to die. If it had been in my power to prevent such a tragedy, I would have. But I find the distinction that others make between who are innocent and whose deaths are acceptable self-serving and dishonest.
4 We should by no means take terrorism lightly. History has certainly shown us plenty of examples of great empires brought down by wandering tribes (The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom documents this side of history extraordinarily well). But I do think that massive exploitation makes a fall inevitable. We should attack this problem from both ends-fighting terrorist organizations militarily (and we are going to have to be far more precise about this than we have been) and eliminating their rationale by working for social justice on a global scale. We have to think win-win, not zero-sum-because if we don't include their interests (as human beings) within our own, one day their interests (as an Islamic force) will replace our own. Listening is the first step to changing someone's mind. President Obama seems to understand this much better than Bush did.
If you identify with the message of this article, please email it to people, tell your friends, even print out copies to pass around. Together we can raise awareness. Thank you.
1 | 2
