Israel Throws Girls In Jail Who Don't Want To Fight

Back when Israel was fearsome and great, before they had kings, let alone government, and went downhill fast, here is how they rolled.

4And the Lord said to Gedeon: The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them: and of whom I shall say to thee, This shall go with thee, let him go: whom I shall forbid to go, let him return. 5And when the people were come down to the waters, the Lord said to Gedeon: They that shall lap the water with their tongues, as dogs are wont to lap, thou shalt set apart by themselves: but they that shall drink bowing down their knees, shall be on the other side. 6And the number of them that had lapped water, casting it with the hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: and all the rest of the multitude had drunk kneeling. 7And the Lord said to Gedeon: By the three hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place.

Today, Israel throws girls in jail who do not want to fight.

At the end of their current prison stint, the two will be released, after which they will be required to once again present themselves at the induction base. They will then likely declare their refusal once again, and be handed a fourth prison sentence, a cycle that can repeat itself for months on end.

I like the old Israel better.

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Drink Tea? You Can't Be a Conscientious Objector

Conscientious Objection needs be holisitic, or the mores of any given time will catch an appellant up.  In WWI, the draft board tried to catch presumed hypocrites by asking if the drank tea:

It appeared that the tribunals tried to argue that as a taxed good, drinking tea was a contribution to the war effort.
Thousands of conscientious objectors refused to perform military service, usually on moral or religious grounds, as conscription laws enlisted 2.5 million extra British troops from 1916 onwards.
By March 1916, the British Government was desperately short of soldiers, conscription was introduced and all able-bodied men, aged between 18 and 41, were ordered to join the war effort.

Conscientious objectors can drink tea even if taxed, because a tea tax is a minor violation of human rights but killing others is an existential violation.  You'll need to be holistically formed to defend your objection when the next draft comes.

They drafted 41 year olds?

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Conscientious Objector and the Pacifist

Sometimes they shoot conscientious objectors.  How to define those who are to be shot?

Conscientious Objector, or CO, generally relates to war, but can relate to anything: Romney/Obamacare, school choice, you name it.

Assuming freedom is the ether necessary for us to have free will, then the ability to choose is fundamental to being human. Conscientious objection is grounded in freedom, and freedom assumes all is voluntary.  Violence violates freedom, so conscientious objection is necessarily nonviolent.  But one confusion is the homophonic word but profoundly different meanings.

Although pacifism is what conscientious objectors are all about, that is making peace, people speak of conscientious objection as though they were passivists.

You see above in the verb and adjective form the sense, the difference, emerges.

Tohei Sensei, aikido chief instructor and the only ju-dan awarded, taught about positive non fighting, that is dealing with violence peacefully.  To pacify the violent is the work of pacifists.  Tohei contrasted positive non-fighting with negative non-fighting, for example, running away form a fight is negative non-fighting.  Passivism would be a form of negative non-fighting.

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A Rainbow of Conscientious Objection

Conscientious objection is not limited to war, but all violence, defined as force to effect an injury.  Forcing people to recognize same-sex marriages is a violence, one to which there is objection.

The government will propose new protections for “conscientious objectors” to same-sex marriage which marriage equality advocates fear could allow civil celebrants, registrars and even bakers and florists to refuse to serve same-sex weddings.

There are those who conscientiously object to gay marriage.  They ought to live out their conscience.

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No Place for Moral Convictions in Conscientious Objection

Medicine is another field where willful killing is practiced, and seen as a virtue.  In Australia they are working on a CO status for doctors.

Establish medical conscientious objection review boards. Robert Card, of the University of Rochester Medical Center (US), argues in the JME that doctors need to give “public reasons” for conscientious objection. This would rule out even “effective referral” for a procedure. Their reasons need to be solidly grounded, empirically and ethically. This rules out reasons based on prejudice (sexism or racism) or sincere moral convictions.

Wait, what? Sincere moral convictions are no basis for CO status?  Well, I guess we cannot have morality in medicine.

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Is Conscientious Objector Normal?

Well, not normal in the sense of "normed", that is socially conditioned to be mainstream.  But conscientious objector is standard human default position.  What is twisted is to be willing to kill others.

Now to be sure, all religions caution against killing to some degree, and our rules reveal our weaknesses, and the Ten Commandments certainly contain "Thou Shalt Not Kill."  So getting twisted into a willingness to kill is quite common, as our rules reveal.

I attended a lecture on just war offered by a priest who had been a naval officer.  His revelation came as he stepped on to a nuclear sub for the first time upon which he was to serve, and was appalled by the experience.  The destructive capacity was too great, concentrated in so small a vehicle, and his thinking and meditations led him to leave the navy as a conscientious objector.

What he had to say about that was interesting.  Now my understanding was any officer can resign his commission and leave.  I am sure that have changed.  What he related was when he informed his commanding officer of his change of heart, he was told to keep it absolutely secret.  It would take time, but they would quietly remove him from the navy. If he told anyone before he got out, then he would end up in jail.  Presumably conscientious objection is contagious.

Anyway, in his talk he happened to indicate he thought conscientious objection was something of an aberration.  I let it go during his talk, but approached him afterward to remonstrate with him on this point.  At first he doubled down, then I pointed out that a willingness to kill, although near universal is the aberration.  The conscientious objection is the image of God to which we are to aspire to strive.

Now having said that, being a conscientious objector is a gift.  There is no virtue in the gift, it just is.  But all life is a gift, and the gifts give us an insight into how we would be as obedient children.  Conscientious objection probably comes under, as a gift of the Holy Spirit, under understanding.

Understanding: In understanding, we comprehend how we need to live as followers of Christ. A person with understanding is not confused by the conflicting messages in our culture about the right way to live. The gift of understanding perfects a person's speculative reason in the apprehension of truth. It is the gift whereby self-evident principles are known;

Such a gift comes with a built in faithfulness.  It would not occur to me to deny it, and no doubt I would be fearless in its defense.  Again, none of this is virtuous, any more than being born rich is virtuous.  It is just an indication to everyone else what the standard is.  And we all have such gifts in some way.

Further, failure in other ways rather overwhelms any benefit being such a torch bearer may have, even if it were some kind of virtue.

The reason I was given AO status, the most extreme form, I am not even allowed to do alternative service, is because as a genuine conscientious objector, I would convince others to be so.  Not everyone, but enough to cause a problem.  Likewise, even a johnny-come-lately as the naval officer was to keep quiet or be jailed.  (Apparently they would jail him on some other charges, in order to keep the CO thing quiet.)

If not normal, conscientious objection is standard human.  It's not for everyone, but for those to whom the gift is given, then rock that gift!

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Israel Releases Conscientious Objector

Apparently Israel has the same CO standards as the USA, but Israel drafts women....

After spending 67 days in military prison, Israeli conscientious objector Omri Baranes was officially released from IDF service on Thursday. Baranes, from the city of Rosh HaAyin in central Israel, was recognized by an IDF committee as a pacifist and was thus released on conscientious grounds. The conscientious objectors committee originally reject her request, leading Baranes to refuse to serve in the army and sit in prison.

Well, actually, with a poverty draft USA dragoons women as well, but never mind.  She is not exactly a CO, since she only objects to war partially, hence her original rejection for CO status.  The IDF probably needed the cell, so they listed her CO and sent her on her way.

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Conscientious Objectors Replace Police in Detroit

And yield better results in the hardest neighborhoods.

The City of Detroit can no longer bother (or afford) to respond to citizen's pleas for help when they call 911.  So conscientious objectors step in and solve the problem.


If it works in Detroit, why not everywhere else, and get rid of this failed experiment of only the last 150 years or so of "police"?  (This guy reminds me very much of James DeMile. and here…)

The conscientious objectors only got their chance to outperform the police for the last 20 years because of the failure of the Hegemon's social contract.  C'est la vie.

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Conscientious Objectors Help Win the Peace

Fasting is a part of martial arts training, and so there is some irony in the fact that conscientious objectors helped win the peace after WWII.

One of the greatest killers of World War II wasn't bombs or bullets, but hunger. As the conflict raged on, destroying crops and disrupting supply lines, millions starved. During the Siege of Leningrad alone, over a thousand people a day died from lack of food. But starvation also occurred in a more unlikely place: Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was here that, in 1945, thirty-six men participated in a starvation experiment conducted by Dr. Ancel Keys.

One of the elements of "just war" is the aftermath cannot be reckoned to be worse than before the war.  Knowing how to care for victims of starvation after a war is obviously important, and oddly no one had studied it.

To find subjects willing to put themselves through such prolonged deprivation, Keys recruited volunteers from among the ranks of conscientous objectors — young men who had chosen to join the Civilian Public Service as an alternative to military service. Many of these conscientous objectors, though not all, were members of the historic peace churches (Brethren, Quakers, and Mennonites).

In WWI, conscientious objectors were imprisoned, and some worked and beaten to death.  This is better.

Keys published his full report about the experiment in 1950. It was a massive, two-volume work titled The Biology of Human Starvation. To this day, it remains the most comprehensive scientific examination of the effects of famine. And given modern restrictions on research with human subjects, it seems unlikely that an experiment on a similar scale could be repeated today.

Correct, one would think.  Especially after the Tuskegee Experiments.  But fact of the matter is, in spite of the prohibitions on human subjects trials without subject notification, any president of the USA can order secret, involuntary human subject trials the president deems necessary.  The FDA summary of the rules lists no less than 71 exceptions to the "no involuntary human subjects" regulations.

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The Hegemon and the Unspeakable Horrors

It's the way of the world that any given hegemon adopts bad ideas as policy, once that aggregate power to the hegemon, and people then fall in line.  As Eisenhower warned, this leads to powers sought and unsought, and inevitably horrors unspeakable.

It's when the hegemon begins to lose his mandate of heaven, and people begin to admit those unspeakable horrors maintain, that their minds turn to violent reaction.

One of the problems of being a conscientious objector, a nonviolent pacifist, is one's reaction is expressly to reject violence in response to the unspeakable horrors.  We exercise quite effective challenges to the hegemon.  There is this strange thing, then, we conscientious objectors see all the unspeakable horror all the time,  work against it nonviolently, which is the only effective means, but then comes a time when the masses begin to accept the reality of the unspeakable horrors.

Most people will overlook the unspeakable horrors when times are good, for one reason is that they believe the only rational response to unspeakable horror is violence.

Think of all of the people who tried to assassinate Hitler.  Each was a Hitler supporter at one time, but only when Hitler was losing did they make their attempts (Canaris is an exception to this, but he never tried.)

The awakening of the masses to the unspeakable horrors is most unwelcome to the conscientious objector, since the violence of the masses just sets everything back.  Also, those who want to overthrow the system never care about making things better, they only care about being in charge.

Russian literature knows this, the Russian writers all complained the put-upon masses wanted nothing to do with the change programs of the progressives.  People who actually work for a living are the ones who suffer.

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Bernie Lau and The Hit

Bernie Lau is an aikido instructor of mine, going back to 1971, and I helped him confect his memoires for eight years last decade.  Here is a version of a story I know well, as told to a local radio station.

I stayed calm, but my thoughts were racing. I thought, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Here I am sitting in a restaurant where I’ve just enjoyed a great meal. I now have a Chinese elder standing at my table, offering me $25,000 cash to “take care of Ben Ng.” Me, a white guy (but with a Chinese stepfather), being offered such a task. What an honor, really. I was blown away.

Lau is full-bred French, francophone as his native language, but was adopted into a Chinese family in Hawaii and so fluent in Hawaiian pidgen.  He is always a good time.

Note he did not do the hit.

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Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and Peter Norman

In the Fall of 1968, the American War was raging in Vietnam, Martin Luther King had been murdered a few months before,  RFKennedy had been murdered as well. It was interesting times, so much good in art, food, architecture, fashion, music, cultural interaction going on, and yet such terrible things happening too.  Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

Whereas the hegemon deals with resistance through murder, people like Martin Luther King declare nonviolence as the proper means to right wrongs. MLKing, according to a court of law, was murdered in a conspiracy involving active duty USA military personnel, exactly one year to the day MLKing condemned American violence in Vietnam and the world. This led to riots across America in what we now call "the ghetto" and a general repudiation of nonviolence.  This was the intended effect of the hegemon, for the hegemon ever gains more strength when it draws violent reaction, and the hegemon ever diminishes in the face of nonviolence.  Nonviolence in the face of the hegemon seems ridiculous.

Jesus expressly disagreed, so Christians are obliged to be nonviolent.  Pro-war Christians are a contradiction in terms, the hypocrites so condemned by Jesus Himself.

But do all protesters need die?  Not actually, for example, here are two people who resisted, but did not die.



Tommie Smith was the Usain Bolt of 1968, the fastest man in the world.  An Australian, Peter Norman took the silver, and a another American, John Carlos took the bronze.  Smith and Carlos, during the awards ceremony, raised their fists in protest of USA cultural patterns and practices.  This act ended their athletic careers, and their act was deemed "violent" and they were whisked out of the Olympics and back to USA to face death threats.

Usain Bolt earns $20 million per year, and Tommy Smith would have earned a similar amount in his time, had he simply not raised his fist.  He knew what raising his fist would cost him.  But he simply could not allow the false narrative that is imposed upon winning athletes at the Olympics: USA is the land of opportunity.  Well, it may be for some, but not for Americans of African ancestry, or native Americans, etc.  For Smith and Carlos, no amount of money was worth advancing that lie.  (Both went on to careers as High School PE teachers.  Lucky kids who had them as coaches.

Nonviolent resistance may seem pointless but can be very effective on a diffuse basis.  Everyone in USA at the time was well aware of this event.  Back then the Olympics were covered by ABC all day with Highlights at prime time, in an era when there were only three TV channels.  The Olympics today are a difficult hash to watch, better viewed on Youtube after the fact.  But in 1968, Smith and Carlos electrified USA.

I recall watching it, and in my adolescents forming an understanding of the reality the hegemon could be resisted, needed to be resisted.  Nonviolence and its effects, along with the widely argued American war Vietnam war (no useful discussion of USA wars are any longer allowed), led me to consider all wars, and arrive at my conscientious objector position.  Among other influences, if Smith and Carlos could give up all, should one not consider joining them.  Peter Norman continued at the games after Smith and Carlos were ejected, but wearing sympathetic articles on his uniform for the rest of his time in Mexico.  Although an Australian he suffered terrible consequences for this, including being denied the opportunity to continue to compete against the best.  Within a year or two, I was writing a letter to the hegemon's representative for drafting people for war, and explained how I could not join their efforts.

They agreed, and categorized me 1-O (women and children first, they fight before I do.  I am very proud of that.)  Now, I harbor no delusions that the hegemon makes just exceptions, for the history of conscientious objectors in USA is historically they are usually beaten or starved to death after being thrown in prison.  There was no chance of this when I was drafted, so I did not fac that.  The American War in Vietnam was never an existential war, it was entirely a fun-time money-maker for the hegemon's minions.  Why the hegemon granted exemptions, and does to this day, is they simply do not want the idea of just cause and just war ever to be considered by soldiers.  To daft me would put me in the barracks of soldiers who had never thought of conscientious objection.

They think about it eventually, usually too late.  Who can ponder veteran suicide rates without considering a lack of orientation to just cause and just war before joining the military.

So Smith and Carlos missed out on millions, are now long forgotten, but had their effect, quite diffuse but long term.  Who knows how many they inspired, and unlike Dr. King, their legacy is too simple and clear to romanticize or hijack by the hegemon to advance the hegemon (no one will name streets after Smith or Carlos, or make a holiday that never mentions war resistance by MLK).

To this day, USA athletes are forbidden to protest war, and quite the contrary, USA athletics are probably the #1 venue for promoting war and sustaining the pattern and practices of oppression in the USA.  A current wikipedia article on Bill Walton simply does not mention his career anti-war resistance, and even contemporary newspaper articles of his actions were buried in newspapers of the time.

Smith and Carlos are the definition of hero, people who do what is right knowing they will get nothing for it, in fact lose everything they worked for, and go ahead because it is the right thing to do.

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Sky Pilot

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Job Security: Sky Pilot

The Catholic Church in USA maintains a Military Ordinariate, which means it has an archdiocese made up in support of the USA military.  I wonder what Jesus would say?  He did say, obey them, but do not be like them.  A priest in a uniform is most assuredly "being like them."

To what effect?

And here is one of the most important ironic points of this article: What the Japanese Imperial government could not do in 250 years of persecution (i.e., to destroy Japanese Christianity) American Christians did in mere seconds.

Read the whole article.

Military first, archdiocese second is the name:   http://www.milarch.org  And are they ever well-funded!

• For God and Country Retreat

• This fall the AMS will hold an all-expenses-paid discernment gathering for ordained priests who may sense a further call to military chaplaincy.

And...

During the four-day gathering, AMS clergy, staff, and chaplains will join Archbishop Broglio in giving the priests a realistic picture of what it is like to be a military chaplain and how to become one. The priests will stay at the Washington Retreat House on Harewood Road in Northeast Washington, and from there, go on field trips to Andrews Air Force Base, Fort Belvoir, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the Pentagon. In these real-life settings, they will meet and talk with military officers, enlisted personnel, and other chaplains. The highlight of the gathering will come in the Pentagon Memorial Chapel at the 9/11 crash site, where the priests will concelebrate Mass.

What does any of that have to do with Jesus Christ?  This is an indoctrination junket, not a discernment event.  And as with Catholic Media, which is all-war-all-the-time, you have to ask, who is paying this piper?



Camo vestments?  Where did the Catholic Church get the money to produce this video?  If the money the Church spent on this one video were put into catechizing 15 year olds properly, there might be some sanity in USA foreign policy.  Some Christian restraint.

What I find interesting is how the very many faithful Catholic pro-peace, anti-war entities are out there, how reticent they are about joining forces.

One challenge is that one arm of the Catholic anti-war left is decidedly pro-abortion, making true conscientious objectors unable to meet-up.  But otherwise, there are countless seamless-garment Catholics out there, still reticent about associating.

True, the hatred and horrors the state will visit on those who not only fail to participate, but also on those who fail to agree, makes effectiveness a scary proposition.  Yes, even if there is no civil disobedience contemplated (like the Camden 28 below), but merely working on trimming one's sails to follow the Christian narrow path, the state will visit its horrors on you.  Try declining baking that cake.

One small contribution would be the demand that no Catholic enters the military without first a military-prep (like marriage-prep) program.  If any Catholic joins without the program, they are not allowed to receive the sacraments until they complete the program.

Is that harsh?  Take God seriously.  Read Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.  Look at what happens to a people that equate God and Country, who depend on their own power to defend, and engage in entangling alliances and adopt alien culture.  A pair of strict rules:  Do not multiply wives and horses.  the military does both, with (as put gently by Melville in Billy Budd) sailors etc are exempt from rules of fornication (and generals bang groupies with no consequence) and when do we not thrill at the latest military weaponry  (whether it works or not)?

I've been a military man all my life, there has been a John Spiers who fought in every American war, and both sides in civil wars.  But being a Christian means you must decline to engage in moral crimes, and Catholicism teaches us to conscientiously object to unjust cause and unjust means of war.  I participated in the American War in Vietnam, as a conscientious objector.  When I see private property parking slots "reserved for veterans", why, that means me!  (The only reason I do not designate myself as a veteran in hegemon venues is for fear of being qualified for set-asides).

Back to what program associated Catholic conscientious objectors could advance: No Catholic gets into the USA military without military prep, taught by conscientious objectors.  There are enough of us out there to do the work, and the money from just that one video would probably cover the cost.

Sure, the full fury and horror of the hegemon would be visited on us, just as the Soviets worked over Solzhenitsyn, even attempted murder by chemo-radioactive poisoning.  Far from tempting God, we'd be trusting Him to protect us, like a faithful Israel.

Be not afraid.

Deuteronomy 17:16But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.But he shall not multiply horses to himself,.... That he might not put his trust and confidence in outward things, as some are apt to trust in horses and chariots; and that he might not tyrannise over and distress his subjects by keeping a number of horses and chariots as a standing army, and chiefly for a reason that follows; he was to have no more than for his own chariot, so Jarchi, and so the Misnah (g) and Maimonides (h); the Targum of Jonathan restrains it to two:
nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses; which was a country that abounded with them, and therefore he was not to encourage, and much less oblige his subjects to travel thither or trade with that people for the sake of increasing his stock of horses, Isaiah 31:1.
forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, ye shall henceforth return no more that way; not that going into Egypt on any account whatsoever was forbidden, as for trade and merchandise in other things, or for shelter and safety, for which some good men fled thither; but for outward help and assistance against enemies, and for horses on that account, and particularly in order to dwell there, from which the Jews in the times of Jeremiah were dissuaded by him, and threatened by the Lord with destruction, in case they should, Jeremiah 42:15. When the Lord said this is not certain; it may be when they proposed to make a captain, and return unto Egypt; or he said this in his providence, this was the language of it ever since they came out of it, or however this he now said; see Deuteronomy 28:68.
(g) Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 4. (h) Hilchot Melachim, c. 3. sect. 3.
Deuteronomy 17:17Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away,.... From attending to the duty of his office, the care and government of his people, and from serious religion; and particularly from the worship of the true God, as the heart of Solomon was turned away from it by his numerous idolatrous wives, 1 Kings 11:3, it is a common notion of the Jews that a king might have eighteen wives, and no more (k): neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold; he might increase his wealth, but not greatly, lest his heart should be lifted up with pride by it, and lest his subjects should be oppressed and burdened with taxes for that purpose; or he, being possessed of so much, should make use of it to enslave them, and especially should be so elated with it as to deny God, and despise his providence, and disobey his laws; see Proverbs 30:9. The Jews generally say (l), that he ought not to multiply more than what will pay the stipends or wages of his servants, and only for the treasury of the house of the Lord, and for the necessity of the congregation (or commonwealth), and for their wars; but not for himself, and his own treasury.
(k) Maimon. Issure Biah, c. 1. sect. 2. Misn. ut supra. (Sanhedrin, c. 10. sect. 4.). T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 21. 1. Targum Jon. & Jarchi in loc. (l) Maimon. ib. sect. 4. Misn. ut supra.

 On the other hand, the Church of "Romans 13" did overcome the pagan Roman Empire.

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Daddy, What Did You Do During the War?

Well, when USA was fighting communists in Vietnam, I was trading with the Chinese Communists who were making the USA defeat possible.  I was trading because the anti-communist Nixon had opened trade relations with China in a political effort to save Mao's bacon so Mao could save Nixon's.

Yes, rather crazy that.  Of course I was never in that war or any war, my participation was limited to objecting conscientiously.

So what did I do during the (Vietnam) war? I traded with the Communists.  Like he Bush family, that traded with the Nazis during WWII.

 Five of the Bush family companies were seized by Congress in this manner. Congressinvoked the Trading with the Enemy Act and seized the Bush-Harriman-managed Thyssen entityHamburg-American Line, under Vesting Order No. 126. Thereafter, under Order No.248, and then Vesting Order No. 259, and ultimately Vesting Order No. 261 various otherbusinesses were seized. None of this is secret, it is all in public records. There isevidence there were more going on, which were not caught.

Yea, my family has been here longer than the Bushes, and did a lot more wicked things too.  People are starting to talk about "white privilege".  That's not the problem, it is entitlement, that you can do what you want.  That is the real problem.

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Why is Pope Obsessed?

Read the headline, and then the title on the lower left:

"Why is Pope so obsessed with the devil?"  Why aren't we obsessed with killing babies for parts, something we've known about since the 1960s at least?

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Just Following Orders!

"Just following orders" was a legitimate defense after WWII and is today in both USA and Israel, not matter what the crime.  It is nonsense, but it is the law.  It is why Eichmann was so hard for he jews to prosecute, only until the found an order to a war crime he personally issued where they able to convict him.  Here is an accountant tallying the take on 300,000 deaths:

“The conviction of Oskar Gröning for his actions sends an unequivocal message that, although he may not have led or directly participated in the atrocities at Auschwitz, he was clearly an accessory to the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis,” the group’s president Karen Pollock wrote in a statement Wednesday. “By being the ‘bookkeeper’ of Auschwitz, he assisted in and facilitated the murder of 300,000 Jewish men, women and children and it is right that he has now been held legally accountable for this.”

So are we now in the USA who pay for the 50 million deaths by abortion now guilty too?

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Independence and Nonviolence

"If we had not fought the American Revolution, we'd still be under British rule. "  This is a logical fallacy, ahistorical thinking.  We did fight a revolution, and we are no longer under British rule.  Those two parts are historical.

There is no basis to claim "we'd still be under British rule" since that is not what happened to USA.

But there is history of countries under British rule who gained independence without fighting a revolution.  For example, Canada. And dozens of others.

So a historically valid statement would be, "We would have gained independence without fighting a revolution."  Nothing in that statement conflicts with history.

Now you try:  "If we did not fight the Civil War, USA would still have slavery."  This too is ahistorical.

We did fight a civil war, and we did end private property slavery.

In the era we fought a civil war, 19 other countries ended slavery peacefully.  So a historically valid statement would be "USA could have eliminated slavery without a civil war."  Nothing in that statement conflicts with history.

It is important to speak accurately if you want what you say to matter.

Wars and revolutions for change only make matters worse.  The USA had a good thing going until the bankers hijacked the peaceful independence movement by means of a constitutional convention.  The enemy of peace in the USA, Alexander Hamilton, led the successful effort to create a corporation with banking at its core and a standing military, and call it the federal government.

His activities sound so contemporary:

Alexander Hamilton, then building up the army, suggested sending it into Virginia, on some "obvious pretext". Measures would be taken, Hamilton hinted to an ally in Congress, "to act upon the laws and put Virginia to the Test of resistance".^[14]

We would be much better off if we had no wars and revolutions.  That is a historically valid statement.  Any claims to the contrary cannot be substantiated by history.  I cannot celebrate war and oppression, but when the bankers control the textbooks, just about everyone else does.

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Study Military Conscientiously BEFORE You Join

Sadly, this fellow merely accepted the public relations tales:

In December 2013 he was deployed to Camp Hovey in South Korea, 10 miles from the border with North Korea. He was attached as a medic to the 4-7 Cavalry. He began to hear disturbing stories about the wars in the Middle East, not the glorified stories spun out by recruiters, the media or the entertainment industry, but stories about whole families being blown up or gunned down by U.S. troops in the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan. He lived among soldiers who were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Many were drinking heavily. He listened to them talk about being prescribed anti-depressants by Army doctors and then being redeployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He may have been a medic, but he was required to carry a weapon and to use it in combat. He knew that for him, to do so would be impossible. 

I was told by a naval officer who exited the military when he realized standing military was not tenable he told his superior office he wanted out, and in turn as told to keep it a secret and he could get out, but if he told anyone outside the process he would be held in and made an example of.

The USA military truly feat conscientious objectors.

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Catholic Snipers: My Jesus is Bigger

I think of General Boykin who famously noted his God was bigger than Islam's God when I read the thoughts of pro-war Catholics.  The Jesus described I imagine to be a teentsy-weentsy Jesus, with a tiny, squeaky voice...  “Existential threat by Islam! Clash of cultures!” 

My Jesus is so much bigger, H U G E !  He healed the sick, overturned an economic system, raised the dead and when the Romans answered with shock and awe: Ecce Homo! INRI... he transformed life and the world in which we were once bound.  Raised himself from the dead!  Now we could be free!

My Jesus, who is so much bigger than the Jesus of the warmongers,  can also be so subtle.  When American Catholics are insensitive the the unceasing begging of prelates across the middle east NOT to attack their countries for the hell it will bring on them, Catholics in the commanding heights of the USA Wehrmacht soldiered on.  In light of this, Jesus raises up a pontiff named Francis, in memory of the Saint who got Islam relations right.

If the greatest Christian saint since the time of the apostles had opposed the Crusade and peacefully approached Muslims at a time when they were supposed to be mortal enemies, that action can inspire and instruct us today. So should the fact that al-Kamil, a great sultan of Egypt and a nephew of Saladin, was so tolerant of Christians that he allowed one of them to preach to him in the midst of a Crusade. The story of Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik al-Kamil says there is a better way than resentment, suspicion and warfare. It opens the door to respect, trust and peace.It needs to be told anew.- Paul Moses

The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace

Note the many glowing reviews of this book. Note who has NOT reviewed the book.  The prominent National Catholic Register.

Now note the kinds of articles NCR does carry.  I am not making this up: Catholic and Killing for a Living.  A paean to snipers.  Read it for yourself, don’t trust me.  (Incidentally, with 74 comments highlighting weak anti-war vs strong pro-war comments, a tedious editorial tactic, my comment as a Vietnam era conscientious objector is not approved by the moderator.)

Update: My comment is now published and so are a lot of other push-back comments against this article.  Good to see.

Now here is the money shot, literally:

Get it?  Look at the banner ad above the masthead.  Ka-ching!  Military ads in a pro-life rag. Note the poverty draft pitch:  In a country that inherently disrespects black lives as of no matter, you can get respect by joining the army.  And see below, Catholics can be snipers!  And enough money to send you six free issues.

A service of EWTN.  Such content producers as “Sacred Heart Radio” And “Ave Maria Radio” rock the “existential Islamic threat” and “thank you for your service” tropes, and just seem to gain all of the ads.  And those other Catholic media languish for lack of advertising. Our government picks and chooses what media it favors, so why not Catholic media?   And why wouldn’t they eventually find people who want to be successful, measured in money, if not ratings?

About six years ago there was one Catholic business adviser program, where the host apologetically went over  Church teaching and USA actions in the middle east and plaintively begged his audience to call in and tell him where his reading of the facts was wrong, that the USA was the unjust aggressor in the middle east wars?  Crickets.  Not that audience.  I kept tuning in, but sadly, he whose name I no longer recall, was gone.

I know something of online advertising, usually those ads are targeted to the audience, and it is rather pointless to offer me a position as a pro-war chaplain: the gross exposure rate costs more for the advertiser.  These ads are what makes one publication more viable than another, and guess who gets such ads?  Pro-war Catholic press.

When EWTN talks about NFP and pro-life (anti-abortion) I could not agree more.  And the powers that be could care less.  Abortion is a marginal issue in American politics, and the Catholics who matter to the powers that be, politicians, are all solidly pro-abortion, bought and paid for.

Now, to the powers that be, war matters, and there is a solid Catholic anti-war ethic latent that must be starved for oxygen.

Yes, EWTN is putatively pro-life (on the narrow abortion question) but there is no seamless garment...  even on the question of torture, when the Pope expressly condemned it, Al Kreska allowed that among the panickers after 9-11, it was understandable to employ torture, not questioning whether we should have a system where panickers make the decisions.   Further, he will not extend the same flexibility to a young woman in a panic who has an abortion.  The former is no sin in Kreska's world, the latter must be confessed or to hell you go, in the milieu well funded by the hegemon.

Such hypocrisy dissuades people of good will, who want to hear a seamless garment argument on pro-life to keep looking, since prominent Catholic media is not about to offer it.

A Patrick Coffin on his show was interviewing the new director of gay whatever, a former marine, who in reply to Coffin’s direct question on whether torture is ever warranted, his guest noted they were convicted, and punishment may be laid on convicts.

This non-sequitor was allowed to pass by Mr. Coffin, but then, he is clearly uneasy about Church teaching, this the host of Catholic answers (Cafeteria Catholic answers?)  And oddly, Coffin had announced that for this segment, no call-in questions would be taken.  A unique arrangement for a call-in show.

When it comes to ratings, proof of popularity, his website offers:

Patrick Coffin is the host of our flagship radio broadcast, Catholic Answers Live, voted Best Catholic Radio Show in America by the readers of About.com.

Wait, who? Ah yes, that arbiter of Catholic excellence, the self-selected group of those who avail themselves of about.com.  Where no doubt a dozen likes gets you into the winners circle.

My experience is you can tune in just about anytime to EWTN and get a good dose of anti-Muslim blood slander.

I was in the audience at St Monica's Church on Mercer Island, Washington circa 2006 when Fr. Mitch Pacwa, a eastern Jesuit fluent in various Semitic languages was peppered with questions  regarding “ is Islam inherently evil” “Can Muslims be good citizens?”  Oddly the lecture was given in the Church proper, so I refrained from asking Fr. Pacwa if Christians can be good citizens.  Prudence dictated I not introduce contradiction in the sanctuary.  But I think I observed a change in Fr. Pacwa, to what you hear now from him on EWTN.

If Jesus wanted to advocate war in the clash of cultures, never before or since in history did anyone have a better chance for an attentive audience.  Indeed, he was betrayed and abandoned by those who expected to prevail by the sword.  Just as in USA today.

Now back to this Pope named Francis. Not only would it be a rebuke to the American Catholic Church, or the Church of America, at the same time such a Pope would be an inspiration to the vast swathes of Catholics worldwide who are appalled by USA actions, and assume Catholics are a witness to the truth, not players in the violence.

Saint Pope John Paul II issued a controversial vade mecum in which he cautioned confessors not to convert penitents from informal sin (say artificial birth control)  to formal sin (actively rejecting church teaching on same) if in the discernment of the shrive, the penitent is not well catechized enough to embrace the truth.  Bring them along easy, over time, toward the truth.

I wonder if pro-war catholics would remain Catholic if the bishops named USA war crimes for what they were.  Pre-emptive strike is a named war crime, not a matter of prudential judgment.  Sure, Weigel et al can claim it as such, but no, it is a mortal sin.  Would Weigel and others leave the Church, as surely as a Biden or a Pelosi, if told in no uncertain terms that certain actions are mortal sins?

Glad I am not a Bishop, as are countless others.  I'd push it, and not worry about the cross.  

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