Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize

Congrats to President Obama on winning the Nobel Peace Prize.  Lets hope he ends up more like Martin Luther King than Henry Kissinger, who won it in 1973.

Kissinger won the award for arranging U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.  Good for him but Kissinger, as Richard Nixon’s main advisor, was responsible for the secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia and most likely behind the overthrow of Chile’s democratic government in 1974.

This is what Martin Luther King said in his Nobel Peace Prize speech:

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality….I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.

Obama has walked a very fine line since getting involved in mainstream politics.  Not many former community organizers end up becoming the most powerful person on Earth. I I think that is a good thing.  I‘d rather have someone like Obama, trained on the streets of Chicago,  leading our military and our economy than a Wall Street type or a general.  He should know that military action does not produce a better and more safe world; and that our economic system has severe shortcomings.

If anyone has the chance to make Dr. King’s dream a reality–the dream he talks about in the Nobel speech–than Obama is our greatest hope.

We might not ever again have someone like Obama in the oval office; lets hope that he and we can forge a peaceful world that lines up with Dr. King and not Kissinger.

Filed under: Barack Obama, chicago, economy, environment, military , martin luther king, peace, Obama, chicago, community organizing, economy, military, Nobel peace prize, nobel, henry kissinger, chile, 1973, dream, King's nobel peace prize speech, miiitary, wall street

Fiji Water=Water of Death

I’ve weened myself off the water bottle habit (we’d buy a few cases of Ice Mountain from Costco) after I heard about books like Bottlemania: How water went on sale and how we bought it. This month’s issue of Mother Jones magazine takes the debate up another notch with the article “Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle.”

Celebs can’t get enough of this stuff! Obama has been photographed drinking it and Fiji has gotten support from even well known progressives like Arianna Harrington and Laurie David. Also count in Al Gore and Mos Def.  One Manhattan hotel only puts Fiji water into its dog bowls!  In fact, Fiji is now the U.S’ leading imported water brand.  (How crazy is that! Buying water from halfway around the globe).

Read the article but here are a couple of quick facts:

• Lonely planet warns travelers to the town where Fiji water is bottled that the tap water “has been deemed unfit for human consumption,” and groceries were stocked with Fiji Water going for 90 cents a pint—almost as much as it costs in the US.”  Shops in this town, Rakiraki, advertise cheap coffins.
• Fiji Water shelters its assets in tax havens like Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. It pays no taxes to the people of Fiji.
• Though Fiji Water brags about its carbon footprint and charitable giving, it is basically in cahoots with the dictatorship of Fiji and its advertising budget dwarfs any charitable giving.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Mother Jones, human rights, military, progressive , Al Gore, Arianna Huffington, Barrack Obama, bottled water, bottlemania, Cayman islands, charitable giving, Costco, dictatorship, Fiji, human rights, Ice Mountain, imported water, Laurie David, Lonely Planet, Mos Def, Mother Jones, Obama, Rakiraki, social justice, Spin the bottle, tax havens, water, water of death

The Radical Politics of Palm Sunday

 

 

Today is Palm Sunday.  It is the Sunday for Christians that honors Jesus’ “triumphal entry”  into Jerusalem.   It beginning of Holy Week.  

Palm Sunday has always been a favorite for me.  Most churches lack drama and participation and the waving of palms on this Sunday atleast allows people some agency in the worship service.   Fro the most part though,  the day has lost its radical meaning though.

I  would bet that if you went to 100 churches today on Palm Sunday not one would talk about the deep political (and real?) meaning of Palm Sunday. 

The Last Week

 I would highly reccomend Marcus Borg’s and John Dominic Crossan’s The Last Week to read this week.  The theologians give a day by day theological account of Jesus’ last week as told by the gospel of Mark.   It is a slim book but deeply layered and provides all sorts of historical and scriptural context for this holiest of weeks.  

For most churches, the “triumphal entry” of Jesus is really just a celebrated death march.  Jesus has already won the game and  now he just has to die so that we can get this show on the road.   As with most of the gospels (and the word “gospel” itself), the “triumphal entry” of Jesus is an act of political drama and confrontation.  

“Triumphal entry” is a Roman concept and describes the ceremonial procession of the emporeror/governor/general into a conqoured city.  It is a mighty  and overwhelming show of force; a first century version of shock and awe.  Here is  how Borg and Crossan imagine Pontious Pilate’s triumpant entry:

Imagine the imperial procession’s arrival in the city.  A visual panoply of imperial power; cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.  Sounds:  the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums.  The swirling of dust.  The eyes of the silent onlookers, some curious, some awed, some resentful.

On the day we know as Palm Sunday, Pilate’s Roman garrison had marched from its base on the coast to bunker down in Jerusalem for the Passover feast.  Jerusalem was already hostile to its Roman occupiers and during Passover, the population of Jerusalem swelled from 40,000 to maybe as many 150,000.  

From the west, the empire entered the city. Jesus’ peasant procession entered from the East.  

What procession do we walk in?

Filed under: Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church, POlitics, Revised Common Lectionary, bible, military , christianity, Easter, emergent church, emerging, Jeruslaem, jesus, John Dominic Crossan, justice, lectionary, lockebie central, marcus borg, methodist, military, occupation, Palm Sunday, passover, peace, Roman Empire, The Last Week, war