Addressing global militarism & world empire

by TOM HAYDEN

[Hayden was the author of the "Port Huron Statement," a key leader of opposition to the US War in Vietnam, and a member of the California State Legislature. This is the first of a two-part essay.]

May 7, 2009

The concept of the "Long War" is attributed to former CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid, speaking in 2004. Leading counterinsurgency theorist John Nagl, an Iraq combat veteran and now the head of the Center for a New American Security, writes that "there is a growing realization that the most likely conflicts of the next fifty years will be irregular warfare in an 'Arc of Instability' that encompasses much of the greater Middle East and parts of Africa and Central and South Asia." The Pentagon's official Quadrennial Defense Review (2005) commits the United States to a greater emphasis on fighting terrorism and insurgencies in this "arc of instability." The Center for American Progress repeats the formulation in arguing for a troop escalation and ten-year commitment in Afghanistan, saying that the "infrastructure of jihad" must be destroyed in "the center of an 'arc of instability' through South and Central Asia and the greater Middle East."

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

How are we to respond to a recent report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of alleged terrorists?

According to Pew, 54% of Americans who attend church services at least once a week said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42% of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed.

The study did not include synagogue-attending Jews or Muslims, Hispanic Catholics, or Black Protestants (all of whom might be expected, out of the historical life-experience of their groups with being tortured, to oppose it more vigorously).

1. To plan your own New Freedom Seder of the Earth, , click on the article just beneath this for the text. For the Blessing of the Sun on April 8, see articles 3 & 4 below.
2. To view on YouTube part of the only existing film of the original Freedom Seder held on April 4, 1969, access the film at –-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5HgiGMqh6g
3. The Shalom Center has available ten DVD's of a much fuller film record of the Seder. To the first ten people to make an on-line DONATION OF $180, we will be glad to give the gift of one of those films. Donate by clicking on the Shalom Center logo on the right-hand margin of this page (right there! >>>>>>>>>>>) and enter "1969" in the "honor of" box.

ASHES, STONES, & FLOWERS:
A LITANY ON MILITARISM, RACISM, & MATERIALISM
IN HONOR OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING

Militarism

For each vibrant life and hopeful dream that is annihilated by war and written off as necessary collateral damage,
We lift up the ashes of our pain, O God.

For the millions who go hungry or suffer sickness because bombs are more lucrative than bread and missiles are deemed more important than medicine,
We lift up the ashes of our remorse, O God.

For each mind that is forever haunted and each body that is left broken by war,

LITURGICAL SCENARIO FOR MLK BIRTHDAY OBSERVANCE,
EVE OF INAUGURATION DAY, 2009

(From Rabia Harris, Muslim Peace Fellowship, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center)

: Remember we awant people to stay interested, be moved, get motivated, have fun, and draw closer together. We are assuming that programs, including the text of the pledge, will be distributed at the door.)

Introduction Coming Together Summoning of the People According to the Traditions Blowing of the Shofar Ringing of Church Bells Muslim Call to Prayer Buddhist bells, etc.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

As the American people faces up to the challenges of the extraordinary Presidential and Congressional election of 2008, this week's Torah portion (Shoftim) offers some profound and precise standards for deciding what to do.

This election is only slightly extraordinary because a woman and a Black person are on the national tickets. Much more extraordinary are the profound issues of centralized power and democratic process that we face.

First off, the Torah portion asserts (Deut.16: 20), "Justice, justice shall you pursue. " Why "justice" twice? To remind us that "Just results can only be achieved by just means." Even the pursuit by any political party or candidate of goals they fervently affirm are "just" cannot be done by suppressing voter turnout or by assassinating the characters of their opponents.

(Rabbi Arthur Waskow for The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, & Sarah)

Relearning Heschel, Rebirthing King, Re-Inaugurating America:
Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Day
As a new government takes office,
January 19-20, 2009>

As Barack Obama becomes President and a new Congress takes office in January 2009, there is a remarkable opportunity to bring together large sections of American society to reflect on our history and our future. The opportunity is strengthened by the fact that the day before Inauguration day (Tuesday, January 20) is Martin Luther King's Birthday. And January 14 is the yohrzeit (death-anniversary) of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dr. King's close friend and ally.

Each hot mid-summer, we see again how Jewish theology and practice is one (not the only) microcosm for universal experience.

In this case, it is our sorrow for our burning earth, for our own hearts burning with acts of personal and social self-destruction -- and our yearning for new hope and transformation. (See two litanies of sorrow and yearning, below.)

In mid-summer, when scorching winds heated by the Arabian desert sweep across what today are Jordan, Palestine, and Israel, Jewish tradition observes a day of sorrow for the Destruction –- the burning -- of both ancient Holy Temples in Jerusalem, first by the Babylonian and then by the Roman Empire.

Toward a New and Kerygmatic Credo
Zalman M. Schachter Shalomi

Chair of World Wisdom;
The Naropa Institute
Boulder CO.

This essay is a plea for research into the spirituality of the future and invitation for collaboration to bring this about.

Much of my perspective is based on my devotion to the Ribbono shel Olam, the divine Life-Spirit of Gaia. I come from a deeply spiritual Jewish formation in which the values of Tikkun Olam (Healing the planet) and the biblical command of Bal Tash’hit (not to destroy any natural resources) are an essential and constant feature.

In some ways I am on one foot, one of the last Mohicans of pre-holocaust Jewish mysticism and on the other foot I stand on concern with our future. Not only the future of our Jewish people and the continuity of its tradition and lineage but with the global future, our survival as humans on their way to the Great and divinizing metamorphosis.