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The Islamic mystic Rumi says:
“Don’t Grieve.
Anything you lose comes around in another form.
The child weaned from mother’s milk now drinks wine and honey mixes.
God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell.
As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
Now a cliff covered with vines,
Now a horse being saddled,
It hides within these, till one day it cracks them open.”

As humans, we fall in love with the forms of life rather than the actual fire of life itself. As infants we fall in love with the bottle that feeds us and cannot recognize the same kindness when offered with a spoon. The baby sees weaning as a time of bitter grief rather than as transition to a more stable form of sustenance.
As adolescents, we seek the love of a suitor. We cannot recognize love when offered by family or childhood friends. Each lover we lose (and we will lose them all) seems an irreplaceable loss if we cannot see the one lover behind them all.

Life contains much change and sadness. We would not be fully human if we did not grieve, but loss reminds the mystic that we are the fire itself, not the form that burns. What we love in the other is in the fire and not the form. We despair of life only because we have left the fire burning at the center of life to chase after ashes blowing in the wind.

Conservatives Boo the Golden Rule

As long as conservatives refuse any criticism of their candidates and liberals will not tolerate any criticism of Obama, we are in trouble.  Critical self-analysis is not betraying your cause, it is showing yourself to be a person who seeks to live by universal principles.  Winning arguments or even elections are about to become a moot point. It will not matter who was at the helm if the whole ship goes down.

The issues of our time are amazingly simple. We are choosing between human rights and property rights. Further, we are choosing between dismantling empire or suffocating in our armor. Finally, we are deciding whether we will place our human economies within nature’s ledger, or perish as a species.

If your hero does not do all of those things, he or she is not serving the cause of humanity, and you must say so.

Some years ago “shut up and sing” became a rallying cry for those who believe artists should remain silent on political issues. “Art is about beauty,” the syllogism goes, “therefore, artists should focus on their craft and leave the ugly details of politics to those who know best- the powerful rich.”

When the disaster in Haiti happened some years back, the cry went out for prayers and charity from churches all over our nation. But the handful of sermons that actually addressed the issue of why the island is poor, were accused of mixing religion and politics. The consensus is clear: churches are to pray for our troops and remain silent on war. We are to give charity to the poor and remain silent on why there are poor. The mandate is not hard to figure out- “shut up and pray.”

Picasso was once criticized for being political in his art. He made an interesting reply that I will paraphrase: “What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if a painter or ears if a musician? On the contrary, an artist is, at the same time, a political being, constantly alert to the heart rending, burning, or happy events in the world.”

“No,” Picasso went on, “art is not made to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war, for attack and defense against the enemy.” His sentiment may be close to what Jesus meant when he said, “I’ve come not to bring peace but a sword.” The “sword” of love is a blistering ruthlessness against all that is inhuman, even if religion is the source of that inhumanity.

It is not enough for a Christian to love peace; we must also hate and dismantle that which makes for war. It is not enough to love the poor; we must wage war on the economic systems and the political structures that enslave any part of the human family. We must wage war on every ideology that plucks out the eyes of its believers, even if that ideology is our own.

The murals we see painted in an inner city, the butterflies carved on the walls on concentration camps, are not only appeals to beauty, they are cries for justice, which means a beauty all can share. If art is more than songs in the background and paintings on the wall, certainly religion must be more than weekly hymns and rituals. The “sword” Jesus puts in a Christian’s hand is a lifelong struggle, an endless revolution on behalf of the weak and vulnerable, that they too might know beauty.

I think the sign over the Presbyterian section of hell will eternally read, “The frickin Marines understood gay rights before they did.” And we will spend eternity in committee meetings wagging our heads and nashing our teeth.

Who are these people that profit off human misery?  Who are these people that see war as an opportunity to gain wealth? Who are they that see inner city poverty as an opportunity to build prisons? What kind of a person would cut funding for nutrition for a child in the name of freedom?  Capitalism begins as an economic system that places ultimate worth on liberty, but it slowly corrodes all human ties, and ends not an economic system so much as a species of cannibalism.  Capitalism is a fit system for fish and reptiles, but is unworthy of any higher mammal.

Tuesday, January 24, 5-6 pm

Tell Wells Fargo: Stop investing in private prisons and immigrant detention centers

A coalition of immigrant-rights groups will call on Wells Fargo to divest of holdings in the for-profit private prison industry, which is involved in the detention of immigrants that destroys families and cost taxpayers more than $1.7 billion this year.

According to SEC filings, Wells Fargo currently holds over 4 million shares in GEO Group and 50,000 shares in Corrections Corporation of America, with a combined value of $120 million. Wells Fargo, a recipient of billions of bailout dollars, is a major contributor to politicians who have championed the increased incarceration of immigrants. The protest will call on Wells Fargo to invest in our communities and divest from the private prison industry.

The protest is endorsed by Grassroots Leadership and Texans United for Families. For more information, contact blibal@grassrootsleadership.org.

Location: Wells Fargo, Guadalupe & 24th, Austin

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

For, only those who can let go of possessions are capable of sharing the whole world.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

For, only those who feel the sadness of others can ever know the joy of the common life.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
For, only those who renounce artificial importance can experience the riches of nature.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
For, only those who work for universal human rights know satisfaction unsullied by guilt.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
For, only those who show mercy to others can recognize mercy when shown to them.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
For, only those who can be ordinary human beings can ever know the sacred.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

For, only those who work for peace can know what it means to express universal love.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

For, only those who are willing to suffer for justice and love can stand in the company of prophets.

(Translation of Beatitudes, NIV; Paraphrase, Jim Rigby)

It is important to see ourselves through the eyes of others. To most Americans there is little question that Obama is better than Bush. but what if you lived in a different part of the world?

Why Obama’s ‘targeted killing’ is worse than Bush’s torture

Both are legally prohibited but speciously justified by the White House. The difference? Obama’s policy kills innocent bystanders

Mary Ellen O’Connell

guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 January 2012 11.11 ESTBy June 2004, it was confirmed that the US was using torture at secret detention sites and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was in that month that piles of “torture memos” were released to the public. Torture did not officially end until President Obama took office in January 2009.

A similar story is emerging with respect to targeted killing. The Obama administration has produced its own infamous memo; like many of the torture memos, it was written by lawyers in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. It concerns something that many consider worse than torture: the memo apparently seeks to justify “targeted killing”.

Calls have gone out for the release of the memo, but there really is no need. We did need to see the torture memos, but not because anyone with legal expertise on the subject would be enlightened by the analysis – torture is absolutely prohibited. The legal analysis could only be specious. Rather, prior to mid 2004, the use of torture, rendition and secret detention were only rumored. The fact of the memos gave credence to speculation.

In the case of targeted killing, the world can see what is happening. The memo need not be published to confirm the fact. And, as with torture, the memo will not contain a persuasive legal argument respecting the fundamental human rights and humanitarian law at issue.

“Targeted killing” is the killing of certain individuals away from battle zones using military means, including missiles, bombs and commando raids. The missiles and bombs are often delivered by drone aircraft. Given the munitions, it is the rare attack that spares the lives of bystanders – over 2,200 persons are estimated to have been killed in the three years of the Obama administration in Pakistan alone. We have no estimates for deaths in Yemen or Somalia, the other scenes of relentless attacks.

“Targeted killing” has become the euphemism du jour. Remember “harsh interrogation”? The conduct discussed in the killing memo was once simply referred to as assassination.

More and more people are pushing back against the policy. They are reacting, no doubt, to the fact that President Obama has authorized many times the killings that President Bush did. Obama apparently authorized the killing of an American in Yemen, and he is now engaged in the building of drone bases to continue the campaign of assassination. Greg Miller of the Washington Post notes that “no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals.”

In 2001, the US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, stated on Israeli television in connection with Israeli targeted killing of suspected terrorists:

“The United States government is very clearly on the record as against targeted assassinations. They are extrajudicial killings, and we do not support that.”

The US did not support such killing for fundamental reasons of law and morality. Fundamental principles of law protect the human right to life and due process of law. Unlike torture, which is never permitted, states are permitted to allow designated authorities to carry out the use of lethal force in certain limited situations. In situations of armed conflict hostilities, lawful combatants will not be prosecuted for killing that complies with international humanitarian law. Today, under the international legal definition of armed conflict, the United States is involved in such hostilities in one country only: Afghanistan.

Beyond Afghanistan, any use of lethal force by designated authorities of the United States must follow the normal human rights limits on peacetime resort to lethal force. Authorities may engage in lethal force when necessary to save a human life immediately, if there is no alternative. In other cases, an attempt to arrest is required, followed by a fair trial within a reasonable period.

These restrictive international legal rules on killing are derived from moral principle, just as the rules against torture are. Torture and targeted killing have more in common, however. Neither is an effective means toward the ends sought by those who employ them: torture is an unreliable means of information gathering; targeted killing is ineffective on dealing with the challenge of non-state actor terrorist or militant groups.

But even if there was any data at all about assassination having a long-term positive impact on suppressing terrorism – which there is not – the data would not change the law and morality against it. Indeed, the president criticized the assassination of a nuclear scientist in Tehran. Drone attacks outside of armed conflict zones are committing the same wrong – though usually more bystanders are killed than was the case in Iran.

President Barack Obama’s 3 January 2011 letter introducing his national security strategy for the coming decade states that America’s overriding goals are “security”, “prosperity” and a “just and sustainable international order where the rights and responsibilities of nations and peoples are upheld, especially the fundamental rights of every human being.” Impressive, even inspiring – but for the fact that the president’s campaign of assassination is denying many hundreds of individuals their right to life. The security strategy looks set to dramatically ramp up the number and deployment of attack drones from new permanent bases around the world.

Neither torture nor targeted killing will accomplish the goal of a “just and sustainable international order where the rights and responsibilities of nations and peoples are upheld”. Human rights advocates, legal scholars, religious leaders, occupiers and voters are again pushing back against a practice carried out in our names that must end.

This seems a little paranoid, but is still pretty disturbing