Service to man is service to God

I was listening to a great documentary* on Radio Netherlands on the First Hague Peace Conference of 1899. It was really a watershed moment in that really marked the birth of the field now known as international law. The body of law that deals with conduct of warring parties. Sine diplomacy and humanitarianism are two fields that greatly interest me, I found it a fascinating listen.

(*-part one here while part two is here)

In the documentary, one of the interviewees made references to a quote by Martin Luther which went, "What is it to serve God and to do His will? Nothing else than to show mercy to our neighbor. For it is our neighbor who needs our service; God in heaven needs it not."

I don't usually write about spiritual issues on this blog but my private morality obviously instructs my sociopolitical beliefs and actions.

I think this is a great quote. There is no need to serve God per se. If He's the all powerful, omniscient being, then he doesn't need our help. That's why a religious belief which is centered exclusively around prayer and Biblical study is of no value as far as I'm concerned. Religious belief must translate into action in order to be useful.

This always appealed to me. I was raised as a Roman Catholic. Maybe I was lucky that my local parish had some really good, inspirational priests but when I was growing up, they focused to a large degree on Christianity as it relates to helping others. I found great value in this. I've always identified with the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church, with the emphasis on helping those who most need it. I've donated many hours trying to help other people, not for recognition but because I found it meaningful and satisfying.

I've since become a non-practicing Catholic. Some refer to this concept as being a lapsed Catholic, but in my case that's no so. 'Lapsed' implies laziness, like I just don't get around to going to church because I'd rather sit and watch TV. In fact, my no longer going to church is a conscious choice which resulted from a great deal of thought and reflection. The Catholic Church has become so obsessed with private sexual morality that the social justice aspect seems to be an afterthought now. Maybe not an afterthought; I know the Church does a lot of good work in fields like humanitarian relief abroad and anti-poverty at home. And both the current and most recent former pope have spoken out on behalf of victims of war and against the current aggression against Iraq (comments which a lot of practicing American Catholics seemed to dismiss). But the disproportionate focus on homosexuality and masturbation and whether priests are chaste seems misdirected to say the least.

And since I always identified with the social justice aspects more (some of the teachings on sexual matters being downright silly), I've consciously drifted away from the formal Church. But I've kept my belief in social justice and helping others. I've come to believe, as a friend of mine pointed out to me, that organized religion is not about subservience to God but about subservience to HUMANS who proclaim to speak on behalf of God.

In this way, Luther is right. You can best serve God not by spreading hatred or encouraging violence against your fellow man; not by being vindictive or judgemental. You can best serve God by serving His creations.

South Africa ends anti-gay apartheid

Yesterday, the South African parliament passed a bill that authorized same-sex state marriage. It becomes the first country in Africa and only one of a handful in the world to do so.

That it did so is unsurprising for two reasons. Last year, the country's high court ruled that the definition of marriage was unconstitutional. The South African constitution explicitly bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, the only constitution in the world to do so.

Furthermore, South Africa is governed by the African National Congress. The primary reason the ANC was formed was to fight against irrational bigotry. The movement spent decades combatting institutionalized, state-sponsored discrimination so that it would take this position is in continuing with its historic positions in favor of equal rights for all citizens.

Equal rights for gays are regularly denounced as a western concept. In the US, when someone doesn't have a real argument, they call a person or idea 'anti-American.' In Africa, when someone doesn't have a real argument, they use the generic insult 'un-African.' As though any one person has the singular right to define what is truly American or African.

Gay rights advocates contend that same-sex relationships were present in African cultures long before the arrival of westerners. It wasn't until the colonizers passed repressive anti-gay laws that there was a problem. In other words, homosexuality is not un-African. Homophobia is.

The questionably named African Christian Democratic Party's leader took a page out of Pat Robertson's book, insisting that those who voted in favor of equal rights for gays would face divine wrath.

While a government in 'backwards' Africa will legalize gay marriage, the president of 'civilized' America wants a constitutional amendment banning it.

South Africa isn't the only country in the world where 'traditionalists' oppose equal treatment by the government for all citizens.

Pakistan's national assembly recently voted to strengthen protections for women in the country's rape laws. Under old law, rape victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery.

Something which of course made it virtually impossible to prosecute such crimes.

In other words, if a women were raped in private or in small groups, she was punished for her crime of being a victim of violence.

Much like South Africa's pseudo-religious moralists, Pakistan's religious parties predicted the apocalypse. In true bizarro world fashion, one leader predicted that the 'bill will turn Pakistan into a free-sex zone.'

Even though the reality would be the opposite, since sex via rape would actually be punished.

I don't oppose tradition. I'm actually a fairly conservative person in my personal conduct. I believe you shouldn't just snap your fingers and change things simply for the purpose of doing what happens to be in vogue at the current time. There's enough of that going around in my town, people believing that change and progress are inherently synonymous. That's why we have representative democracy instead of direct democracy. Any social change should be the result of thorough discussion, otherwise it will not last, nor will it run deep. You can't legislate how people feel (though you can legislate how the government should act). But that doesn't mean that nothing should ever change.

There was a time when 'tradition' forbade marriages between people of different 'races' (ie: skin color). There was a time when 'tradition' forbade women from voting. Neither were considered full-fledged American citizens for a long time. Maybe anti-gay bigotry and small group rapes are the 'traditions' that are long overdue to be challenged.

Heroes

This essay is part of a (more or less) weekly feature on this blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel, Iraq and Iran*. (*-added on the suggestion of a reader)

I usually don't engage in hagiography but there is one profession that deserves it. There is no group for which I have greater respect than humanitarian aid workers. These are usually well-educated and highly qualified individuals that could easily make a very nice salary in their own countries. But instead of living in relatively safe North American or European cities, they choose of their own free will to go to some of the most inhospitable and/or violent places on the planet. Instead of working in nice, air-conditioned skyscrapers, they work in disgusting refugee camps and poorly equipped hospitals in the jungle or desert. In other words, they sacrifice what would be a comfortable, well of life to go to some of the most miserable places on earth, often with the 'perk' of being witness to man's greatest inhumanities toward fellow man.

And their mission is not to kill people or blow stuff up. Their sole purpose for doing so is to help people, to make people's lives better or at least a little less miserable. They feed the hungry, cloth the sick, give shelter to those who've lost their homes due to conflict. While not all aid workers are Christian, I can't think of any mission that's more truly to the Christian spirit. When I lived in West Africa, I wasn't a humanitarian aid worker but I knew people who were. I knew the lives they'd chosen to give up and I know the reasons why they chose to do so. I know the impact they had on the lives of people who really need it.

This article in South Africa's Daily Mail and Guardian newspaper reminds us that as as noble as their work may be, it's also extremely dangerous. Dangerous because as great as I think their work is, the combattants often disagree. Just as civilians have become a deliberate target of combattants in most war zones, so have these unarmed aid workers.

They're not just honorable, they're physically courageous. Aid workers are part of 'one of the world's most hazardous professions,' according to the United Nations. In fact, it is the fifth most hazardous civilian profession in the world. A soon-to-be-published study revealed that violent acts against aid workers, as measured in absolute terms, have increased markedly since 1997, with a steeper increase in the second half of this decade.

So when some Americans say the UN is worthless, they're saying that helping refugees fleeing war zones is worthless. They're saying that bringing clean water to disease-prone areas is worthless. They're saying that feeding starving people is worthless. Would THEY have the guts to risk their lives on a daily basis, without the benefit of a weapon, to vaccinate children in a distant country? If not, then maybe they shouldn't attack those courageous heroes who do.

There is no profession more worthy of admiration. I tip my cap to all of them.

The other war

In late 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda had attacked the United States and Afghanistan's Taliban regime harbored al-Qaeda. I wasn't entirely comfortable with this war but one could've plausibly argued that it constituted self-defense. We attacked the guys who attacked us. This is why the domestic and international opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan, while hardly non-existent, wasn't nearly as vehement as the opposition to the war that followed.

However, a little over a year later, we invaded Iraq, a war which wasn't even remotely close to having anything do with self-defense or our national security. While many individual Americans may have had noble reasons for backing the war, the purpose of the aggression against Iraq was to take control of the country's economy.

Appropriately, Iraq has been a huge windfall for American corporations, who are being subsidized by the US taxpayers. The US has spent nearly 40 billion dollars on rebuilding Iraq, to very little effect. Where has the money gone? The answer is murky. As a BBC World Service investigative series revealed, huge chunks of this money is unaccounted for. Billions of your money and mine vanished without a trace.

Not surprisingly, US-occupied Iraq has been labelled the second most corrupt country in the world by a pro-business, anti-corruption watchdog group.

The aggression against Iraq has had many terrible effects that have been well-documented. Most notably the sharp rise in anti-Americanism, the sharp decline of American credibility and prestige and the transformation of al-Qaeda in the eyes of many from a marginal movement into a mythical ideology. Even many in the normally conservative military establishment contend that Bush's actions have made America less safe. The head of the British army recently said the presence of British and American troops "exacerbates the security problems" in Iraq.

But one of the less well-known effects of the Iraq debacle is its impact on Afghanistan. Less well-known if your main source for news is television. By all accounts, the Taliban are making a resurgence in the country. NATO recently decided to take control of security in the whole country, because of the increasing influence of the Taliban.

The Nation magazine has a troubling piece on the Taliban's resurgence. The narrative is quite common throughout history. The formal Afghan central government controls little outside the capital. In much of the rest of the country, basic law and order (to say nothing of more ephemeral goals like democracy) are virtually non-existent. Many regions are controlled or held hostage by corrupt militias.

Whenever there is chaos, it's quite natural for people to welcome, at least in the short term, a group that promises some kind of stability. This is how Lenin came to power. This is how Hitler came to power in Germany. This is how the Islamists are coming to power in Somalia. Heck, this is how the Taliban came to power in the first place!

Yet, the Bush administration diverted a huge chunk of its resources to the aggression against Iraq, long before the normalization of Afghanistan was even close to being completed. Iraq had nothing to do with our national security. Afghanistan did. But now the Bush administration has screwed up both countries, stabilized neither, implanted chaos instead democracy and created a breeding ground for terrorists.

Let's go Revs!

MLS Cup 2006: Houston vs New England, 3:30 PM ET on ABC



Today's the big day. New England play in MLS Cup final for the third time. Both other times they lost 1-0 in extra time and both times to Los Angeles. This time we're playing Houston so it's going to be different! But only if the team scraps the ridiculous hyperdefensive shell that shackled them in '02 and especially '05. Rule number one of soccer: you can't win if you don't score!



Prediction: Houston 1-2 New England

Iraq more corrupt than Africa

I knew violence was bad in Iraq. I also knew that corruption was a big deal. Whenever there's a disaster, natural or manmade, there's always a high probablity of corruption in the reconstruction efforts. But the sheer level of corruption in Iraq is mind boggling, though not surprising since the economic potential for US corporations was the main reason for the invasion in the first place.

US-occupied Iraq is the second most corrupt country in the world, according to the independent business-friendly organization Transparency International. Africa is the continent most associated with corruption in the minds of most people, yet no country in Africa is more corrupt than Iraq.

There's more than a little irony to this. World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz is on a crusade. A crusade to stamp out corruption, particularly in Africa. In his previous job as Deputy Defense Secretary, he was on another crusade: to invade and rebuild... Iraq. Too bad his anti-corruption crusade didn't start a few years earlier.

I'm sure this report will enhance his credibility when he lectures Africans on transparency.

Why does it matter? There's the obvious fact that money lost to corruption can't be used to build roads and schools. Additionally, some of the corruption ends up funding militias and insurgents.

Furthermore, a watchdog within the government also noted with alarm the loss of 14,000 weapons destined for Iraqi government use.

So thanks to corruption, your tax dollars are inadvertantly funding and arming the insurgents trying to kill our troops.

The watchdog referred to corruption as "the second insurgency. This money that's stolen doesn't merely enrich criminals but frequently goes out to fund criminal militias or insurgents."

The Bush administration's response:phase out the position of auditor, whose job it is to monitor and report on corruption in the reconstruction efforts.

For the administration, opposing anything that smacks of accountability and purging any internal sign of independent thought isn't just their policy, it's part of their DNA.

The importance of political movements

At some point, I got on the mailing list of David McReynolds, who ran for US Senate from New York on the Green Party line in 2004. I don't agree with everything he says all the time. He's a socialist. I'm not. But too many on the left let themselves get hung up on microdifferences. I find a lot of his stuff thought provoking and that's really what matters to me.

He sent the following essay on the reason smaller parties are important to the American political process, even when the don't necessarily win elections. I realize I'm one of those naive people who believe that ideas should matter in politics, that gaining power is utterly pointless unless it's to advance a set of positive ideals and goals. I realize that's outside the mainstream of American politics, which is more focused on image, scaremongering and ad hominem... because those things, not ideas, apparently win elections. I thought his essay was interesting enough to post here, which I do with his permission.

He writes:

[W]e sometimes forget that the greatest victories of the past half century were not won through the ballot, only ratified there.

The Civil Rights movement was necessary because neither the Republicans nor the Democrats could take it on. (After all, at that time the South was solidly Democratic, and solidly racist, and John F. Kennedy's role during that period was pretty awful). It was achieved in bloody battles - the blood being shed by African Americans, the violence being inflicted by mobs of racists. It was the courage, the dignity, and the nonviolence of that movement which gave us all a new America.

The massive Vietnam peace movement had to take place outside of the major parties because the Democratic Party was the party which got us into Vietnam - the peace movement eventually brought the issue into the electoral arena, when McCarthy ran in the primaries and drove LBJ out of the campaign for re-election.

The women's movement was also "above and beyond" the major parties (as was the gay liberation movement). The same is true of the environmental movement (which often has strong support from some conservatives).

This is why I want again to stress the value - the imperative role - of "ideological centers" as being as crucial to social change as running candidates, and why I think the Socialist Party, Democratic Socialists of America, and Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism are important not because they can field successful candidates, but because they can field essential ideas. I half expect that the Socialist Party's sectarian caucus may bring me up on charges for urging greater and more favorable attention to the Greens, but my job is to speak the truth as I see it.

Having made these really crucial points - the value of organizing outside of the major parties - I also think there is a great deal of nonsense within the left, as it bears on conspiracy, on underestimating the role of elections, and most of all on failing to see the "dialectical relationship" between movements in the street in actions in Congress. Congress cannot, ever, lead - it can only follow. But it remains vital for us to see the struggle for political power as valid, to recognize that the power of the Civil Rights movement forced the Democrats to take action, and laid the basis for the genuinely good civil rights acts which LBJ got through Congress. Our work "in the streets, in the school rooms, in the churches, in the unions" is finally reflected in the halls of power. On Vietnam, for example, only half the battle was won by the Vietnam Peace movement - the other half was won by the Vietnamese people, who put their lives on the line to fight the invaders, and lost three million lives in the process.

Because the US lacks any form of Labor Party (which, if it existed, would be as imperfect as the Greens, as ideologically complex and confused), we have seen the various interest groups - environmental, labor, womens, etc. etc. - look to the Democratic Party and it is easy to forget that the real power for social change is not in either major party but in the independent actions of radical formations outside the political structure. Roosevelt turned to labor because, in 1932, labor had already
become a radical force outside of existing parties and the Democrats need their support. So while I believe in electoral action (my God, I've run for office a half dozen times), I believe even more strongly in the power of ideas, and the need to use the electoral arena as one place to put those ideas into the arena of discussion.

The gangs of Washington County

The Adirondacks and northern New York is the most economically depressed area of New York state, mainly because of its previous reliance on manufacturing (which has collapsed in the northeast) and on industries like logging and mining which are subject to volatile worldwide price fluctuations. Some towns, like Lake Placid and Lake George, have embraced mass tourism. Others have tried to better market their natural wonders to suburban and city folk from other regions.

Dazzled by huge sums of money and the prospect of employment, some towns have embraced the prison-industrial complex as an economic panacea. The Atlantic magazine had a very enlightening investigation of this booming national industry. America incarcerates more of its population than any other western country.

New York's prisons are particularly crowded because of its Rockefeller Drug Laws. These laws are so medieval that even the governor and Assembly speaker, who normally squabble like a pair of six year olds, agree they need to be revamped. Drug crimes, even minor ones like possession of small amounts, now account for 38 percent of the state's prison population.

However much like with casino gambling, areas who bought into the prison-industrial complex are finding out about the unintended consequences. An area with a large population of prisoners soon becomes an area with a large population of FORMER prisoners.

An article in the Glens Falls Post-Star offers a chilling reminder of this fact.

The paper reported: Police in Washington County have uncovered evidence of three chapters of nationwide street gangs in the region, including two chapters of the feared Bloods gang, officials said Monday.

A 14-year-old boy who was arrested recently on charges he spraypainted a street gang symbol on a fuel tank off Clay Hill Road in Fort Ann told police that he is a member of a local chapter of the nationwide Bloods street gang, officials said.

The teen, whose name was not released, told Washington County sheriff's officers he spraypainted the letters "ES" on the tank to represent the "Emia Squad" chapter of the Bloods, said Washington County Sheriff Roger Leclaire.

The teen told police there were about 70 members of the Bloods chapter in Hudson Falls, Fort Edward and Glens Falls, and that they were involved in marijuana trafficking in the region, said sheriff's Deputy Terry Markham, the department's gang specialist.

Where did this problem come from?

An inmate in Washington County jail who'd served time in state prison.

The deputy police chief in Hudson Falls, also in Washington County, noted, "When these kids go to jail, they are in there with actual gang members, who are recruiting all the time."

Rather than being a deterrent, prison appears to be a social networking device linking previously non-violent people with hard core criminals.

If this isn't evidence of the failure of the state's drug laws, I don't know what is.