A Time of Moral Reckoning - SojoMail 11.16.05

[Ian David]

A Time of Moral Reckoning - SojoMail 11.16.05
*************************************************

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++++++++++++++++ 16-November-2005 ++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++ A Time of Moral Reckoning +++++++++++

Quote of the Week
*Give 'em hell, Hagel

Hearts & Minds
*Jim Wallis: A time of moral reckoning

On the Ground
*Zarqawi's big lie and the Amman bombings

Faith in Action
*Before the judge: Going to court for protesting the war

Iraq Journal
*An interrogator's testimony

P.O.V.
*Veterans speak against torture

Soul Works
*Dorothy Day: 'It is hard to love.'

Sojourners in the News
*This week's media roundup

Boomerang
*Readers write

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Quote of the Week
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Give 'em hell, Hagel

"The Bush administration must understand that each American has
a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be
demonized for disagreeing with them.... To question your
government is not unpatriotic - to not question your government
is unpatriotic."

- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), responding to the president's
suggestion earlier this week that critics of the war in Iraq are
"sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy."

Source: The Washington Post:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/3pAzAh41eXrQ/

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Hearts & Minds
+++++++++++++++++++++
A time of moral reckoning

by Jim Wallis

For the past few weeks, thousands of you have been calling and
e-mailing your members of Congress, urging them to oppose budget
cuts that would hurt people living in poverty. Last Thursday,
the House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on its budget
bill. Only minutes after the House convened, the leadership
called for a recess. One can only imagine the arm-twisting and
deal-making that was going on behind closed doors. But as the
hours went on, it became clear it wasn't working. A unified
Democratic caucus and a group of moderate Republicans refused to
go along. Finally, in the late afternoon, the leadership
announced they did not have enough votes, pulled the bill, and
adjourned for the Veterans Day weekend.

That announcement by the House leadership showed that enough
political leaders were listening - and wanted to do the right
thing. Many of us who were working and praying that these
massive assaults on our poorest families and children would be
thwarted are grateful that we were successful, at least so far.

People of faith believe the budget is a moral document. And
they are teaching Congress that moral values extend beyond just
those wedge issues often used to divide people. The wins over
the past weeks - protecting food stamps in the Senate,
reinstating prevailing wages in the Gulf, forcing the House to
rethink the budget - show that a partisan and ideological agenda
that hurts both poor people and the common good is being called
into question. For some time now, religious leaders from across
the theological and political spectrum have been standing
together against poverty - and we stand ready to support
political leaders who speak out for a more compassionate and
just budget.

Some of those leaders last week were members like Rep. Chris
Shays (R-Conn.), who said in a statement: "The poor bear an
unfair burden of the proposed reductions. I'm concerned about
cuts to higher-education funding, child care, child welfare and
food stamps. These are simply the wrong priorities."

Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) also said in a statement, "...the
proposal of significantly reducing student loans, food stamps
and a host of other social programs at a time of many wrenches
in the economy appears un-compelling."

I applaud leaders in the House who have championed better
budget priorities all year - as well as those who are now doing
some soul searching, digging down deep, and taking a stand for
the less fortunate. I hope and pray that we are experiencing a
turning point in how Congress will act to help "the least of
these." Our health and security as a nation depends on that.
This is a unique opportunity for elected leaders to prevent bad
priorities from moving forward, a time of moral reckoning for
our country.

The House leadership intends to try again this week to pass
their budget, possibly on Thursday. I urge you to continue
telling your members of Congress that we will not support budget
cuts that hurt poor and working families - not last week, not
this week, not next week, or next year. It's time to take a
stand.

+ Tell a friend about this issue of SojoMail at: http://go.sojo.net/sojourners/join-forward.html?domain=sojourners&r=cpAzAh41DmX3&

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On the Ground
++++++++++++++++++++
Zarqawi's big lie and the Amman bombings

by Jim Rice

Last Tuesday, we stood in the lobby of our hotel in Amman,
Jordan, and watched an exuberant wedding party singing and
clapping as they sent off the newlyweds. The next day, shortly
after we left the city, our small delegation of U.S. Christian
journalists heard the tragic news that a similar celebration a
block away from our hotel had been devastated by one of three
terrorist blasts - Jordan's 9/11, as many have called it.

On our own 9/11 four years ago, we stood at our office windows
and watched the smoke billowing from the Pentagon as we
gradually realized that the world had changed. In Jordan, that
realization seemed much quicker in coming as Amman was added to
the list of recent terror victims, joining London, Madrid,
Riyadh, Bali. But there is a lot more to Jordan, and the Middle
East, than the current political and military crises.

+ Read the full article: http://go.sojo.net/ct/s7AzAh41eXr8/

+ Statement by delegation of U.S. Christian journalists in
Jordan: http://go.sojo.net/ct/x1AzAh41eXrk/

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Faith in Action
++++++++++++++++++++++
Before the judge: Going to court for protesting the war

by Rose Berger

My presence is requested today by U.S. District Attorney Kenneth
L. Wainstein at the U.S. District Court House in Washington,
D.C. I, along with America's most famous military mom - Cindy
Sheehan - and 370 others face penalties of up to six months in
jail and $500 fines for our arrest at the White House on Sept.
26, 2005, while holding the Bush administration accountable for
what we now know is an illegal war in Iraq.

This particular act of civil resistance - with clergy, Gold Star
families, military families, peace activists, and veterans -
proves false the division between those who seek peace for
reasons of faith and conscience and those who risk their lives
in war and through military service. As Americans we are united
- soldier and civilian, dove and hawk, Right and Left,
peacemaker and peacekeeper - in calling to account an
administration that has put America and Americans in harm's way.
In the words of Dr. King, "Noncooperation with evil is as much a
moral obligation as is cooperation with good."

I go to the court today with trepidation. But also with the
encouragement of Paul to the community at Ephesus: "Live as
children of the light - for the fruit of the light is found in
all that is good and right and true.... Everything that is
exposed by the light becomes visible."

Rose Marie Berger, an associate editor of Sojourners, is a
Catholic peace activist and poet.

+ See Berger's column about her civil disobedience:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/2dAzAh41eXr7/

+ See a press release with more information:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/spAzAh41eXri/

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Iraq Journal
+++++++++++++++++++
An interrogator's testimony

by Joshua Casteel

It is easier to isolate narrowly confined incidents and
behavior. Scowl and point a finger at eight lower enlisted
personnel, but never ask a question aimed at understanding our
own governing dynamics. When all the cameras of the world turned
on Abu Ghraib, I interrogated prisoners under the gaze of
cameras and visiting dignitaries. We dressed to the nines and
followed procedure. Nothing truly CNN-worthy ever happened
during my six-month stay. And we heard about it when visiting
interrogators showed up on base. "Abu Ghraib is soft," they
would say. Things work differently "out there." And we saw it on
the bodies of detainees not sped to the rear custody of the combat units who captured them] like doctrine
dictates. Is it odd things like this continue to happen in an
atmosphere of intentional policy obfuscation? Or am I the only
one unsure of what Rumsfeld means when he uses phrases like "in
the spirit of the Geneva Conventions"? Is that like believing
deep down in your heart that you're a good person despite
continued sins against your neighbor?

+ Read Casteel's full story:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/27AzAh41eXru/

+ Take action to stop torture: http://go.sojo.net/campaign/wwjt/wwuk8g3rf5t88m8?

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P.O.V.
+++++++++++++
Veterans speak against torture

David F. Adams writes from Homewood, Illinois:

I personally witnessed prisoner abuse during the Vietnam War,
and by witnessing and remaining silent became a participant....

When I saw the photos from Abu Ghrab prison, particularly those
showing the use of dogs, I relived the incident seared into my
mind 35 years ago. Would I, a young 22-year-old airman, have had
the courage to say "no" if ordered to terrorize the prisoner
with my dog? I regret I cannot say clearly that I would have. It
would have been a no-win situation of defying an order on the
one hand, and living with ignoring the higher law that exceeds
orders given by mere mortals.

Our elected leaders have the responsibility to ensure that those
who serve in uniform are not placed in no-win positions that
will cause them to compromise their integrity and spiritual
connection to God. In this, our elected officials have failed
miserably. The inhumane incidents at Abu Ghraib were not the
sole action of a "few bad apple MPs," as President Bush has
contended; they were the direct result of this nation's decision
to turn its back on the Geneva Conventions.

+ Read Adams' full story: http://go.sojo.net/ct/w1AzAh41eXrm/

Thomas F. Dewey Jr. writes from Clyde, Ohio:

I was an Army JAGC officer in the 1970s, and one of my duties
was to teach classes to the troops on the Geneva Conventions....


It seems clear to me that Jesus Christ would not support a
policy of prisoner abuse, and yet so many of our leaders who
profess to be firm believers in Christ choose to sidestep the
issue of what duty each of them has to oppose the practice of
prisoner abuse. I wonder if George Bush had been called to
active duty as a pilot during the Vietnam War and shot down over
Hanoi, would he have wanted to be treated as a prisoner under
rules of the Geneva Conventions, or under rules that would
permit him to be beaten, drugged, humiliated, and possibly even
killed by his captors for the crime of being an American?
Someone should ask him such a question. It would certainly be
interesting to hear his reply.

+ Read Dewey's full story: http://go.sojo.net/ct/2pAzAh41eXrj/

+ Take action to stop torture: http://go.sojo.net/campaign/wwjt/wwuk8g3rf5t88m8?

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Soul Works
+++++++++++++++++
'It is hard to love.'

"It is not love in the abstract that counts. Men have loved a
cause as they have loved a woman. They have loved the
brotherhood, the workers, the poor, the oppressed - but they
have not loved ; they have not loved the least of
these. They have not loved "personally." It is hard to love. It
is the hardest thing in the world, naturally speaking. Have you
ever read Tolstoy's Resurrection? He tells of political
prisoners in a long prison train, enduring chains and
persecution for the love of their brothers, ignoring those same
brothers on the long trek to Siberia. It is never the brothers
right next to us, but the brothers in the abstract that are easy
to love."

- Dorothy Day, "Meditations"

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Sojourners in the News
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Top stories:

Religion in America: Churchless seekers:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/sdAzAh41eXrn/ U.S. News and World Report
Wallis makes the sensible argument that liberals need to put
aside their somewhat hidebound secularism and acknowledge the
importance of faith in our public life. Just as important, he
says, they need to challenge the ways conservatives have
co-opted Christianity to advance a narrow, moralistic agenda
that focuses on divisive issues like abortion and same-sex
marriage and neglects the stronger Gospel concerns with poverty,
social justice, and peace.

Democrats Learn Lessons on Religion from Kaine Victory:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/MdAzAh41eXr5/
Jim Wallis on NPR's Morning Edition with Barbara Bradley
Hagerty.
+ Listen to the streaming audio:
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More Sojourners in the news:

Officials discuss possible cuts:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/s1AzAh41eXrh/ The Reidsville Review
(North Carolina)
Democrats fight against bill that cuts funding:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/wpAzAh41eXry/ The Daily Tar Heel (North
Carolina)
Budget deception: http://go.sojo.net/ct/w7AzAh41eXrU/ Magic
City Morning Star (Maine)
Majority Report: http://go.sojo.net/ct/L7AzAh41eXrx/"
target="_blank Air America
The Al Franken Show: http://go.sojo.net/ct/LdAzAh41eXrs/"
target="_blank Air America
Beyond compliance: Companies embrace ethical ways to work:
http://go.sojo.net/ct/wdAzAh41eXrE/ The Christian Science
Monitor

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Boomerang
++++++++++++++++
Readers write

Alan Hatfield writes from Florey, Australia:

As new instances of abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan
by U.S. forces continue to be raised, I find it almost beyond
belief that the U.S. is actually debating the issue of torture
and its use by U.S. forces <"Who would Jesus torture?":[br />http://go.sojo.net/ct/MpAzAh41eXrg//index.cfm?action=sojomail.display&issue=051109#3
SojoMail 11/9/2005]. There can be no justification under any
circumstances of abuse of another human being - physical,
mental, emotional, etc. - none. Not only is it abhorrent to any
reading of the Christian gospel and the opening statements of
the U.S. Declaration of Independence, it is no more than
lowering yourself to the very standards that you profess to
abhor. I am amazed that it can even be considered as a
possibility in a modern democracy.

----------

Leland Dolan writes from Houston, Texas:

During the 2000 presidential compaign, George W. Bush declared
openly that Jesus was his mentor. What puzzles me is that most
of the president's policies seem more based upon pragmatism than
upon the example set by Jesus Christ. In the gospels, the one
person who most exemplified political pragmatism was none other
than Pontius Pilate. It seems like Pilate is the patron saint of
today's politicians, be they Republican or Democrat!

----------

Steve Taylor writes from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma:

As usual, I find David Batstone's commentary thought-provoking.
And while he makes a strong case for the McCain proposal to draw
a clear line in the sand about the U.S.'s treatment of
detainees, prisoners, etc., I must question his use of the WWJD
framework in doing so. I see that question/template used and
misused in many corners of Christian practice, but I certainly
find it problematic to apply to matters of foreign policy for
any country. While the simplest answer is completely obvious:
Jesus wouldn't torture anyone; we can go further and say Jesus'
teaching on turning the other cheek would suggest he would never
defend himself either. By extension, no Jesus country should
ever defend itself against any aggressor or attacker. If that's
the case, then perhaps Batstone should move more clearly to
articulate that bottom line. If that's not the case, then it
would help us (readers in the hinterland) to have some help in
applying the WWJD question more thoughtfully. Or perhaps
international affairs is an inappropriate context for such an
application.

----------

Jean Hunt writes from Nebraska:

Re: C. Melissa Snarr's recent article, "Wal-Mart and frugality's
folly":
http://go.sojo.net/ct/MpAzAh41eXrg//index.cfm?action=sojomail.display&issue=051109#5
. Is she suggesting that low-income and
middle-class families are being selfish and self-serving when
they look for the best bargain? I take offense. We would like to
abandon our every-man-for-himself budget, and trade it in for a
we-are-all-in-this-together plan. How and when will that happen?
I agree that Wal-Mart has followed a policy of greed, and that
they need to share their profits with their workers (who, by the
way, make those profits possible). But Ms. Snarr, do not condemn
those of us who shop there. Do you have health insurance? Does
your workplace provide a pension? If so, consider yourself in
the lucky minority. There are many families who, while not
living paycheck-to-paycheck, still need to save where they can.

When I make purchases at locally-owned stores or at other large
chain stores, I wonder how much difference it really makes. I
know for a fact that a great many of them do not carrry health
insurance for their employees, and their wages aren't much
better than Wal-Mart's.

----------

Dan McGrath writes from Basking Ridge, New Jersey:

How can we proclaim dead that which never was <"The death of[br />compassionate conservatism,":
http://go.sojo.net/ct/xpAzAh41eXrl/ SojoMail 11/7/2005].
Compassionate conservatism was a slogan dreamed up by Karl Rove
to attract moderate voters to vote for George Bush, despite
their better instincts. It was contrived out of Bush's
opportunistic record as Texas governor, focusing on education as
a key accomplishment, and it grew to include the Medicare
prescription drug boondoggle for pharmaceutical stockholders,
designed to attract senior voters while increasing corporate
welfare. True conservatives despise that program, and the truly
compassionate wonder how their elderly, non-Web-savvy parents
will be able to choose from among the many discount cards
available: different ones for different ailments.

----------

Boomerang is an open forum for all kinds of views that do not
necessarily represent those of Sojourners. Want to make your
voice heard? Because of the volume of letters we receive,
concise responses that include a name, hometown, and
state/province/country are the most likely to be published. We
reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. E-mail:
[e-mail]

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