The American Empire and Its Eventual Demise

Our 'fretful, theatrical piety': FYI:

"Like Bonhoeffer, I fear that the gospel has been humiliated in our time. But if this has happened, it is not because the message -- the good news that God loves us unconditionally in Jesus Christ, that we are freed and forgiven in God's amazing grace -- has changed. Nor is it due to the machinations of secularists, or because the post-Enlightenment world has dispensed with the hypothesis of God. The Christian faith has not only endured modernity and post-modernity, but flourished in its new settings.

The gospel has been humiliated because too many American Christians have decided that there are more important things to talk about. We would rather talk about our country, our values, our troops, and our way of life; and although we might think we are paying tribute to God when we speak of these other things, we are only flattering ourselves.

If only holiness were measured by the volume of our incessant chatter, we would be universally praised as the most holy nation on earth. But in our fretful, theatrical piety, we have come to mistake noisiness for holiness, and we have presumed to know, with a clarity and certitude that not even the angels dared claim, the divine will for the world. We have organized our needs with the confidence that God is on our side, now and always, whether we feed the poor or corral them into ghettos."

Go to:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/07/08/god_and_country?mode=PF

for the July 8th original article by Charles Marsh from UVa.

The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy

"All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear..." (Romans 8:14-15)

Wouldn't it be wonderful: if our founding fathers were the generous, selfless, idealistic saints often pictured in our grade school textbooks; if 19th century American history was steeped in respect for human rights for all peoples "created equal"; if American policy of the twentieth century was unsullied by colonial ambition, corporate greed, the depredations of the military industrial complex; and the twenty-first century was begun with selfless brotherly love?

Unfortunately, the founding fathers were as ambitious as any other scoundrels at large in their century. For proof of this we just have to look at their endorsement of slavery, the continued suppression of women and the unpropertied poor legally, politically, economically, and socially, the violent seizure of land owned by native peoples along with a savage ethnic cleansing of the frontier lands.

The nineteenth century was no golden age for American foreign policy with land grabbing wars against the Spanish and the Mexicans to say nothing of the systematic military slaughter of dozens of native tribes. Did not this behavior foreshadow the ruthless savagery of the Soviets and the Nazi Third Reich? But of course, we are morally superior to these godless ideologues.

In the twentieth century the freedom loving American government continued its long struggle to control Latin America by installing and supporting various tyrants in exchange for control of resources, cheap agricultural labor and market monopolies. We eagerly joined the European Allies in their WW I struggle for colonial supremacy in Africa and Asia only to face the bitter reaction of the Germans to the unjust terms of the Versailles treaty. This situation was repeated in our betrayal of the Vietnamese by putting them back under the heel of France only to face war with them ourselves when they attempted to achieve their own freedom first from France and then from the USA.

The greed, savagery, militancy, ambition for empire, scorn for the rule of law and human rights that we see in the present American policies have a long precedent in our American history from the 18th to the 21st centuries. Let's take off the blinders and face the facts of our own history. What we see happening today should be seen with humility as an opportunity to break from the past and to finally act with the nobility which we have in the past failed to achieve.

I would like to see a return to the type of foreign policy this nation had before the 20th century. We have forgotten President Washington's wise counsel to avoid entangling alliances. (This is not to say that we should never get involved in conflicts outside of our borders...WWII being a perfect example). Yes, we should use our influence to positively influence the growth of human rights, democracy, and economic well being. However, we should no longer take on the role of the global policeman. There are a lot of terrible regimes across the globe. Yet, it would be foolish to constantly intervene militarily in order to do away with them. This type of foreign policy would only result in the deaths of our brave serviceman and woman, drain our tresury, and make us an object of hatred and resentment among the nations of the world. One need only look at our foolishness in invading Iraq to see an example of this kind of interventionist foreign policy in action.
However, to those Americans whose palms get sweaty in anticipation of the collaps of the "American Empire", take heed. An American collapse will result in a period of disorder not seen since the end of the Western Roman Empire. Some possible scenarios include: war on the Korean penisula; a much larger war between Shia and Sunni across the entire Middle East; another round of Arab/Israeli wars; an arms race in Asia; a Chinese invasion of Taiwan; and possible Russian bullying of her neighbors in Eastern Europe.
The U.S. should disengage from these regions, but gradually so as not to create a sudden power vacuum. Otherwise, people may look back at the early 21st century as "the good old days".

At lunch today at work, we discussed the current USA foreign policy and the way it depends on behaviors totally out of line with the values in our founding documents.

When you describe the armies of occupation we have throughout the world I am sad. The lives of young military personnel are spent for world domination instead of for the discovery of the marvels of life and love. The wounded and the dead military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan will reveal to the next generations the folly this preventive war. Children without parents, parents with wounded children: this pain must be allowed to speak to our nation so that all war everywhere becomes a thing of the past.

You speak of the demise of the empire, and first we think of Rome being overrun by barbarians. In this new day however, I see the empire giving its power over to the corporations. (I am thinking of the trading agreements where communities cannot decide not to have polluting industry because they can no longer restrict free trade?) These multinational and intercontinental bodies are merging and growing faster than a batch of bunnies. They have their own intelligence corps and their own armies. (I am thinking of Blackwater, the book.) In spite of the profiteering every war has, it is my prayer that these corporations will see that killing off a people, any people, is not in their best interest.

Thanks again for getting me started.
Sister Zelda

Peace and Good,
Isn't our system self correcting? As long as the peaceful transfer of power happens at each election wont these things iron out over time?

Your Brother in Christ (Franciscan Tertiary of Mary, Mother of the Most Blessed Sacrament)