Sunday, June 26, 2005
Today's sermon
Think back now on what the right wing considered impeachable offenses committed by President Clinton. The United States may well have been better shape now had they succeeded in removing Clinton, but only because it would have either delayed or prevented a Bush presidency. They were hysterical about the Clintons possibly having profited illegally through a real estate deal, not entirely unjustified suspicions, but without merit & completely unconnected to matters of "national security." By contrast, hhe hubris of the Bush adminstration is nearly beyond belief, a disgusting concoction of naked greed, lies, & religious hypocrisy.
I don't want the Bush White House to set a public date for withdrawal from Iraq. I don't even want those people to admit they were mistaken. I want President George W. Bush to get a grip on reality - to do this he would probably need the kind of heart-to-heart, mind-to-mind conversation with his father that he has never had, that his father may be ready to have. Skip the isolated Texas ranch, take a boat away offshore from Kennebunkport, don't even make a pretense of fishing.
The current President of the United States has an opportunity to do what his predecessor was eventually forced to do on a far less serious matter; admit to himself & those closest to him that he was terribly, inexcusably, morally wrong about something. He doesn't have to confess this to the American people. The great wrong wasn't his desire to remove Saddam from power; it was his particular personal application of will to do so, which was - to use his own religious language, not mine - a sinful application. & having begun the war on false premises, on deceit, with "shock & awe" - as if we are agents of the primitive sort of justice dispensed by the Almighty I am of the Sinai, Mr. Bush must now take truthful stock of his & our & the Iraqi people's awful predicament that has resulted in an uncountable number of human deaths & mutilations. By looking at & listening to Mr. Bush, one would never guess that he is truly accepting & carrying the moral responsibility of his decisions. War should never be pursued on the assumption that it is not immoral. It is immoral even when it becomes unavoidable. If great military leaders have understood this, why can't our president? It doesn't require deep theological reflection or crawling on one's stomach to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It is time for George W. Bush to act, decision-by-decision, to correct himself & his policies. The Iraqi War cannot be morally justified. Nor can we believe that the suffering of the Iraqi people is redemptive. Suffering is suffering.
I wish many of the ideals voiced by Mr. Bush over the past few years were spoken by a leader of wiser & more generous spirit. Now the President must design a realistic yet moral strategy for replacing the Saddam regime & getting out of Iraq. Even if this strategy hurts those friends & allies who are profiting from the war, & offends those friends & allies whose foreign policy is inspired by John the Revelator. & if his counselors - his Rices & Rumsfelds - cannot or will not provide this strategy, accept their resignations & replace them. It's hard to imagine anything more difficult for George W. Bush than reaching that deeply inside himself. But it also was hard to imagine William J. Clinton going as far inside himself as he did.
I don't want the Bush White House to set a public date for withdrawal from Iraq. I don't even want those people to admit they were mistaken. I want President George W. Bush to get a grip on reality - to do this he would probably need the kind of heart-to-heart, mind-to-mind conversation with his father that he has never had, that his father may be ready to have. Skip the isolated Texas ranch, take a boat away offshore from Kennebunkport, don't even make a pretense of fishing.
The current President of the United States has an opportunity to do what his predecessor was eventually forced to do on a far less serious matter; admit to himself & those closest to him that he was terribly, inexcusably, morally wrong about something. He doesn't have to confess this to the American people. The great wrong wasn't his desire to remove Saddam from power; it was his particular personal application of will to do so, which was - to use his own religious language, not mine - a sinful application. & having begun the war on false premises, on deceit, with "shock & awe" - as if we are agents of the primitive sort of justice dispensed by the Almighty I am of the Sinai, Mr. Bush must now take truthful stock of his & our & the Iraqi people's awful predicament that has resulted in an uncountable number of human deaths & mutilations. By looking at & listening to Mr. Bush, one would never guess that he is truly accepting & carrying the moral responsibility of his decisions. War should never be pursued on the assumption that it is not immoral. It is immoral even when it becomes unavoidable. If great military leaders have understood this, why can't our president? It doesn't require deep theological reflection or crawling on one's stomach to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It is time for George W. Bush to act, decision-by-decision, to correct himself & his policies. The Iraqi War cannot be morally justified. Nor can we believe that the suffering of the Iraqi people is redemptive. Suffering is suffering.
I wish many of the ideals voiced by Mr. Bush over the past few years were spoken by a leader of wiser & more generous spirit. Now the President must design a realistic yet moral strategy for replacing the Saddam regime & getting out of Iraq. Even if this strategy hurts those friends & allies who are profiting from the war, & offends those friends & allies whose foreign policy is inspired by John the Revelator. & if his counselors - his Rices & Rumsfelds - cannot or will not provide this strategy, accept their resignations & replace them. It's hard to imagine anything more difficult for George W. Bush than reaching that deeply inside himself. But it also was hard to imagine William J. Clinton going as far inside himself as he did.
Comments:
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Hi Bob,
I'm glad your into Blind Willie Johnson. George Bush should be to.Blind Willie's wife does alot of the back round vocals on his records.Check out this book Spinning Blues Into Gold,it's all about the Chess Brothers.I think will find it interesting.
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I'm glad your into Blind Willie Johnson. George Bush should be to.Blind Willie's wife does alot of the back round vocals on his records.Check out this book Spinning Blues Into Gold,it's all about the Chess Brothers.I think will find it interesting.
# posted by 
: 2:22 PM
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