Three Years After the Bombs Fell on Gaza
This article by Ahmad Barqawi is re-posted from CounterPunch.
It’s exactly three years ago that the ins and outs of the overpopulated strip were sealed off by the Israeli military just as tightly as the entire “International Community” shut its eyes and ambivalently turned its back on a horrifying massacre that was in the making. And it’s three years ago that we’ve used up what little was left of our quota of sympathy and compassion towards the Palestinians and took our collective apathy to a whole new level.
Three years after the “unilateral cessation of military operations” on January 18th, 2009; and the Israeli apparatus of mass murder and annihilation is still roaring at the borders; ready to be initiated at a moment’s notice, the IOF is literally licking its lips, salivating at the chance of yet another vicious round of wholesale slaughter, its animalistic zeal for more bloodletting is as vigorous today as it was only three years ago –if not more-, Israeli political, diplomatic and military officials alike don’t seem to miss an opportunity to beat the war drums – and they do so with an almost reckless abandon.
The day starts and ends with the gloom of impending war amassing over Gaza; on December 27th, 2011 (third anniversary of the war on Gaza), Israeli army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz stated that another attack on the strip is “inevitable” while southern brigade commander Tal Hermoni was quoted by Haaretz newspaper as saying that another “varied and different military campaign” is being prepared, this is of course not counting the fact that targeted killings, aerial night raids and the occasional ground incursion have already become such horrible albeit daily realities in the strip.
Today, an entire population in Gaza is held hostage to dire living conditions and the Zionist state’s death grip, Israel’s heartless policy of meticulously calculating and determining the calorie-intake for Gazans is still the order of the day; university students are being robbed of their academic futures due to arbitrary travel restrictions, patients denied their right to treatment and systemic disregard for anything even resembling human rights still goes on apace.
Three years after the bombs fell; and Palestinians in Gaza –with so many cards stacked against them- are still trying to piece together the broken shards of their lives and entire families are still living through worn out photographs of their loved ones; those who lost their lives to Israel’s Casting Lead and the rest of the world’s self-incriminating silence.
Three years after the bombs fell; and new injustices heaped on top of ongoing ones. The piercing wail of sirens, keening voices of loss amongst the ruins of the strip still prevail till this very day in the little coastal enclave. Three years after the bombs fell; and the only justice the international community could afford to the people of Gaza was a meek report that was even disowned by its author.
Three years after the sky of Gaza was blanketed with all means of spiraling white phosphorous ammunitions; and the ground of the strip is still littered with leftover shells and unexploded bombs laying in wait for a second chance to claim yet more lives of Palestinian kids. Three years after the bombs fell; and living a normal childhood still remains such a rare feat for Gazan children as the sheer weight of life on Israel’s draconian terms takes its heavy toll on their fragile souls; deathly hues of the last war still take hold of their memories and the overcrowded makeshift classrooms are daily reminders of the horrors they’ve endured in that winter of 2008/2009.
Three years after Israeli “spectators” from nearby southern cities took to hilltops in groups to catch sight of the sky raining death and destruction on defenseless Palestinians, giggling, sharing laughs and passing their binoculars from one person to the next as they cheered enthusiastically for the “might” of the IOF as if the carnage unfolding right before their eyes was a mere sporting event; and killing is still a spectator sport for Israeli authorities, trigger-happy junior Israeli border officers still get their kicks from firing live rounds at Palestinian farmers attempting to harvest their crops near the “buffer zone” while hunting the Palestinians in their tunnels near the Rafah border with unmanned drones is still the “standard operating procedure”.
Three years after the bombs fell – almost one year after the dictatorship of Husni Mubarak was dissolved-; and the crushing weight of Israel’s blockade is still pressing hard against the chests of Gazans, the inhumane siege of Gaza –which has long outserved its theoretical usefulness, if there ever was any to begin with- has gradually morphed into this internationally condoned policy that the world has become, for all intents and purposes, far too comfortable to abandon; eventually this chronic passiveness has sadly maneuvered the Palestinians in Gaza into a seemingly unending life of siege and collective punishment, a life in which they have no choice but to literally tunnel their own way out.
Today “Operation Cast Lead” remains an open wound and a dark stain on the conscience of the world as its sense of morality and justice is rapidly waning and the value of a human life remains gravely skewed. Are Palestinian victims somehow not worthy of mass candle-lit vigils at dusk in honor of their memory? Will they ever have someone to recite each and every one of their names at their own “hallowed ground”? The images of the 22-day long massacre in Gaza are too strong to be forgotten; of grief stricken fathers digging the remains of their loved ones buried under the rubbles of what was once their house, of the injured wheeled into chaotic emergency rooms on office chairs, of unidentified bodies of dead children with the word “anonymous” scribbled in black markers across their tiny bellies at the morgue in the Adwan hospital and of doctors at al Shifa Hospital desperately performing CPR on little infants’ chests to no avail.
Unfortunately the media still has a blind spot when it comes to Gaza; screams of protest from Tunisia, Cairo, Benghazi and Sana’a have drowned out the incessant appeals to lift the blockade. Of course; plenty of exploits to be reaped from the Arab Spring nowadays, where -sadly enough- opportunism and gutter politics reign supreme, and so little time to do so.
Three years after the bombs fell; and it seems that Gaza will remain on the back-burner for a while; largely absent from our TV sets and daily dose of news bites, until perhaps Cast Lead II.
The speaker at today’s January Series lecture was for Bush policy advisor and speechwriter Micheal Gerson.
Gerson was introduced by Calvin President Gaylen Byker who acknowledged some of Gerson’s political background and his involvement with groups like the Council on Foreign Relations.
Gerson himself referred to his work with Prison Fellowship Ministries founder Chuck Colson and said of Colson that he would be “remembered as one of the great reformers of the 20th Century.” According to SourceWatch, Gerson has also been a policy advisor for the ultra conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.
The former policy analyst also spoke a bit about his relationship with George W. Bush, in the most sanitized and superficial way. Gerson said the former President had a locker room humor he was not used to and that he found it difficult to just “hang out” with Bush. Gerson also mentioned his involvement with the pseudo justice group run by rock star Bono, ONE.
Gerson laid out his talk by wanting to identify the ways in which Christians can engage themselves in the world. He said that often the statements that public Christians make in the world today gives us an indication of their theology. He mentioned the various responses to the earthquake in Haiti, where some religious leaders would say it was an act of God against devil worshipers, while others chose to focus on relief work.
Gerson acknowledged that Jesus was an enemy of the state, “although he never espoused a political theology.” Gerson said that often those who mix religion with political power results in oppression, but he also said that the failure of Christians to response to contemporary politics, can also result in injustice.
The conservative Christian then went on to speak about the evolution of the Religious Right, beginning with their response the cultural revolution of the 1960s. He said they organized and became deeply involved in the political process.
Gerson says that one of the unexpected partnerships that occurred within the conservative sector was how evangelicals and Catholics came together, despite a history of mutual suspicion. Catholics such as Scalia and Pope John Paul II are highly respected in evangelical circles for their “principled stances.”
Gerson did acknowledge that the language of the Religious Right often was alienating and off-putting and that the issues they have got behind often made people view the religious right as merely a tool of partisan politics.
According to Gerson the most important manifestation of Christians in the world is to engage in justice. He then cites Dr. King and his letter from a Birmingham Jail. Up to this point there were mild contradictions in Gerson’s presentation, but referencing King was over the top. How could someone who has been connected to Washington powerbrokers, conservative think tanks and the Religious Right hold up this powerful statement from Dr. King? He said that what made King’s letter so powerful was the notion that those who are being oppressed can’t wait and cannot be patient.
What the former Bush speechwriter then said clarified both his notion of justice and it further exposed his true colors. Gerson said the best example of his experience of religion and politics was Bush’s decision to fight AIDS in Africa by passing legislation known as PEPFAR. Gerson talked about seeing the results of this US aide program and how it saved lives.
However, there are other perspectives on this matter, particularly African voices that take a different view. One such view is a criticism of the conditions imposed on African nations with the PEPFAR funds, such as an abstinence only policy, no use of condoms and denying African nations the ability to make their own genetic AIDS drugs.
These critiques cut through the cloud created by the justice rhetoric that Gerson used throughout his talk. The PERFAR funding is the best example of religion in politics, because it not only imposes one groups set of values on another, it maintains the status quo and never challenges systemic injustice by emphasizing personal responsibility. This is the relationship between religion and politics that Gerson embraces and we shouldn’t be fooled by his claims to love justice.
Occupy Wall Street joins Occupy The Dream: Is It Cooptation, or Growing the Movement?
This article by Glen Ford is re-posted from Black Agenda Report.
The Democratic Party may have entered the Occupy Wall Street movement through the “Black door,” in the form of Occupy The Dream, the Black ministers’ group led by former NAACP chief and Million Man March national director Dr. Benjamin Chavis and Baltimore mega-church pastor Rev. Jamal Bryant. Both are fervent supporters of President Obama.
Occupy The Dream’s National Steering Committee is made up entirely of clergy, as are its Members at Large, but its secular inspiration comes from media mogul (and credit card purveyor) Russell Simmons, who was a frequent visitor to Manhattan’s occupied Zuccotti Park. Simmons is co-chairman, with Dr. Chavis, of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, whose website is now mainly dedicated to the Occupy The Dream project. It is through Simmons that the ministers hope to attract entertainers and athletes to Occupy The Dream events.
Occupy Wall Street organizer David DeGraw tied the knot with the Dream team at a Washington Press Club conference on December 14, invoking Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s campaign and the need to “penetrate deeper into the African American community.” Dr. Chavis said, “If Dr. King were alive today, he would be part of Occupy Wall Street,” and Rev. Bryant, pastor of Baltimore’s 10,000-member Empowerment Temple AME Church, pledged that Occupy The Dream will work “in lock-step” with OWS. The OWS/OTD alliance would begin, they announced, with a multi-city action at Federal Reserve Bank offices on MLK Day, January 16.
The very next Sunday, Rev. Bryant was at his pulpit exhorting his congregation to get out the vote for the president.
Dr. Chavis is also an active Obama booster. In his November 30 syndicated column for Black newspapers, titled “Brilliant First Lady Michelle Obama,” Chavis wrote:
“As we are about to enter into the heated national political debates and campaigns of the 2012 national election year, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will be under intense pressures to maneuver through what may be one of the most difficult periods of time to maintain resilience and hope.
“I am encouraged and optimistic, however, that President Obama will be reelected if millions of us do what we are supposed to do and that is go out and vote in record numbers 12 months from now.”
Chavis followed with an even more direct appeal:
“All of us should be responding by lending a helping hand, giving of our time, energy and money, and to make our own contributions to push forward for more progress to ensure the reelection of President Barack Obama. Let’s determine the future by how we act today.”
It appears that Occupy Wall Street’s new Black affiliate is also in “lock-step” with the corporate Democrat in the White House, whose administration has funneled trillions of dollars to Wall Street and greatly expanded U.S. theaters of war.
There is, however, a certain historical logic at work, here. Dr. Martin King’s Poor People’s Campaign, disrupted by his assassination, is seen by many as a prime inspiration for OWS. But of course, King’s persona and the whole saga of the Sixties has been methodically co-opted over the intervening decades, most directly by Black ministers claiming to be acting in furtherance of his “Dream” while selling their congregants’ votes to one or the other of the two Rich Men’s Parties. President Obama and his operatives have attempted to draw a straight line between Dr. King’s “Dream” and Obama’s own political ascent ever since his “coming home” speech at a Selma, Alabama, church in March of 2007, where the candidate assumed the mantle of Joshua and asserted that Blacks had already come “90 percent of the way” towards equality (with the transparent implication that his entrance to the White House would complete the process.)
Perhaps the most historically and politically corrupt poster of the 2008 campaign superimposed Obama’s head on Malcolm X’s body in the only known picture of Dr. King and Malcolm, shaking hands. So, there is nothing novel about labeling a 2012 Black church-based, pro-Obama electoral campaign as “Occupying the Dream.” Black ministers in campaign mode routinely depict Obama’s political troubles as indistinguishable from threats to “The Dream,” whose embodiment is ensconced in the White House. That’s simply common currency among Black preachers pushing for Obama.
Russell Simmons brings bling to the mix. As the Occupy The Dream website states: “Teaming up with entertainers such as Bon Jovi, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, and Kanye West, Dr. Bryant encourages citizens of every race, color and creed to join Occupy the Dream.” Simmons is a genius at transforming social capital into the spendable kind – which is why he has been courting OWS so diligently. He is now fully “inside” the movement, flanked and buttressed by loyal Obama Black clergy.
It is highly unlikely – damn near inconceivable – that Occupy The Dream will do anything that might embarrass this president. Its ministers can be expected to electioneer for Obama at every opportunity. Their January 16 actions are directed at the Federal Reserve, which is technically independent from the executive branch of government – although, in practice, the Fed has been Obama’s principal mechanism for bailing out the banks. Will the ministers pretend, next Monday, that the president is somehow removed from the Fed’s massive transfers of the people’s credit and cash to Wall Street over the past three years? Is Obama to be absolved by clergymen wearing “Occupy” buttons?
Far from tamping their Obama fervor, the OWS brand equips the “Dream” ministers (and Simmons’ entertainment assets) to accomplish a special mission: to insulate the president from the Occupy movement and the national conversation on economic equality – or, better yet, to make him appear to be part of the solution. If they so choose.
OWS has, to date, been effective in warding off cooptation by Democratic Party fronts such as Rebuild The Dream and MoveOn.org. But, it seems their antennas were not so finely attuned to the political structures of Black America: who the players are, and how the game is run. The Obama campaign may have found its niche on “the Black-hand side” of OWS.
At this late stage, there is no antidote to the potential cooptation, except to rev up the movement’s confrontation with the oligarchic powers-that-be – including Wall Street’s guy in the White House. Let’s see what happens if OWS demonstrators join with Occupy The Dream at Federal Reserve sites on January 16 carrying placards unequivocally implicating Obama in the Fed’s bailouts of the banksters, as Occupy demonstrators have done so often in the past. Will the Dream’s leadership be in “lock-step” with that? Maybe so – I’ve heard that miracles sometimes do happen.
In his December 30 newspaper column, Dr. Chavis offered these thoughts:
“2012 will be a test for the United States. There will be a political test in terms of how millions of people will vote for the future. There will also be an economic test between the 99% and the 1% on the issues of income inequality and economic justice.”
We do, indeed, face a test in 2012: Will the Democratic Party be enabled to swallow up the Left – as it does every four years – including the fragile and tentative structures of the Occupy Wall Street movement? And, will the Democrats enter through the Black door?
Confronting Institutional Racism in the US and West Michigan: Michelle Alexander to speak on The New Jim Crow at GVSU
Next week Michelle Alexander, author of the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, will be speaking at GVSU.
Alexander, a lawyer, will be giving two talks, both focusing on the thesis of her book. The thesis essentially says that there are more African Americans in the criminal justice system – prison, jail, probation and parole – right now in the US then there were slaves during the peak of chattel slavery.
This sobering reality flies in the face of all the daily punditry about how the US is now in a post-racial era. We here constantly that there is no need for affirmative action, no need for social welfare and certainly no need to even talk about racism in the US, especially since the election of Barack Obama. Alexander’s book not only challenges such claim, it smashed them with hard data and sharp analysis.
In Kent County, the most recent census data shows that African Americans make up only 9.7% of the population. While Blacks make up just under 10 percent of the areas population, they make up over a third of those in who have been arrested, are in jail or are on parole/probation.
In other words, Kent County is a microcosm of this new Jim Crow that Alexander speaks of. Other statistics also bear this out. According to the Kids Count 2011 data, African American children are seven times more likely to spend half or more time in poverty than White children.
The Kids Count data is supported by a 2010 Brookings Institute report from last year, which listed the Grand Rapids metro area as one of the top areas in terms of the growth in percentage of the population now living in poverty.
This kind of poverty has distinctive consequences such as the fact that, “The infant mortality rate among African American infants is almost triple that of white infants, 15.4 per 1,000 live births compared with 5.5 deaths per 1,000 for white babies.”
In addition, the Grand Rapids Public Schools, which serves a predominantly Black student population, has inadequate funds, resulting in disproportionately larger classroom sizes and low testing scores than the surrounding White suburban schools districts.
Poverty rates, the lack of quality education, and an unequal application of drug sentencing laws, means that Blacks are going to be disproportionately caught up in what Angela Davis refers to as the Prison Industrial Complex.
This kind of institutional racism is what plagues racial minorities within the US, but is not a reality that many white people are willing to acknowledge. This is often the case in Grand Rapids where the White community often becomes defensive when claims of institutional racism are raised, so much so that the most visible form of racial justice work is manifested in “Diversity workshops.”
However, diversity training does not alleviate Black poverty, it does not keep Black people out of jail/prison and it does not provide adequate funding for Black children to get a proper education. This is what Michelle Alexander means by mass incarceration in an age of colorblindness. White Americans disproportionately do not want to acknowledge the ways in which institutional racism is manifested in this country.
Michelle Alexander
Wednesday, January 18
5:00PM
Grand River Rm, Kirkhof Center, GVSU Allendale
Thursday, January 19
10:00AM
Cook-DeWitt Center, GVSU Allendale
Both talks are free and open to the public.
Channel 8 continues tradition of climate denial
As I write this posting we are being told that there will be a snow-storm coming to Wet Michigan sometime Thursday night. All the local weather people have made sure we are prepared for this.
However, today is yet another winter day of temperatures about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, a fact that WOOD TV 8 weather reporter Matt Kirkwood made during a Tuesday night forecast.
Kirkwood was reporting the weather standing at Rosa Parks Circle in his shorts to make a point about how many days the temperatures have been above average. Kirkwood stated that over the past 41 days of winter there have been 25 days of 40 degree plus temperatures.
At one point Kirkwood was holding both a shovel and a golf club to illustrate the point that people have been more likely to play golf than to shovel snow. Such an illustration reflects either what channel 8 personnel do in their free time or the kind of audience they want to appeal to.
More importantly, despite all the effort to tell viewers that it has been an extremely warm winter with minimal snow, Kirkwood did not attempt to offer any explanations as to why this might be happening. The WOOD TV weather reporter definitely did not suggest that maybe West Michigan has seen so many warm days in winter because of global warming.
This is not surprising from a station where other weather reporters have actually denied that global warming is a reality. In 2007, there was a posting on Media Mouse about former channel 8 weather reporter Craig James and his position on global warming.
In 2009, Media Mouse again noted that the most recent head meteorologist at WOOD TV, Bill Steffen, was also denying global warming. GRIID noted a year ago that Steffen went after Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell when the mayor mentioned global warming in his State of the City address.
The fact that WOOD TV weather reporter Matt Kirkwood did not mention global climate change as the reason that West Michigan has been experiencing such warm temperatures this winter doesn’t mean he is denying global warming. However, to not explore this issue does a tremendous disservice to the public.
Within the past year there have been numerous new reports how the impact of global warming. One report discussed how climate change was altering many plant species. Another report discussed the rate at which Arctic ice is melting and the International Energy Agency stated recently that the window for reversing human generated global warming is approaching nearly irreversible levels.
Considering that the global community of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been stating for years that global warming is a very serious problem and that it is caused by human activity, it is time that weather reporters treat unusual climate patterns as a serious matter.
IWW Film night 1/19 – Land and Freedom
The Grand Rapids branch of the IWW continues its monthly film series on January 19 with a screening of the 1995 film Land and Freedom.
The film is about a young man from Great Britain who goes to Spain in the 1930’s to help the Democratically elected government fight the Fascists who were trying to overthrow it. The Fascists were backed by Hitler and Mussolini. It is a very powerful film that looks at the amazing resistance efforts of people who passionately believed in freedom and justice.
This film is free and open to the public. A discussion will follow for those who wish to participate.
Land and Freedom
Thursday, January 19
6:00PM
IATSE Labor Hall
931 Bridge st. NW. Grand Rapids MI
WOOD TV Reporter now working for far right think tank
Yesterday, the Grand Rapids Press announced that channel 8 reporter Anne Schieber was leaving the station to work for the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
The article cites Schieber and two Mackinac Center staff members who are delighted to have the former WOOD TV 8 reporter on board. The Press story also quotes the Center’s own description as a “non-partisan research and educational institute dedicated to improving the quality of life for all Michigan residents by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions.”
The Press reporter takes this statement as a given and fails to provide readers any other perspective on the work of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
According to SourceWatch, the think tank, “was established by the state’s leading conservative activists to promote free market, pro-business policies.”
The Press article also states that the first assignment for Schieber at the Center will be to “provide coverage of the right-to-work debate taking place in Indianapolis.” This makes sense as Right to Work policies, which is essentially an anti-union policy, is one of the positions that the Mackinac Center has taken for years.
In addition, the Center has been calling for the privatization of public education and the privatization of government services. In fact, the Mackinac Center has been involved in helping the Snyder administration push for greater austerity measures in the state and even has endorsed the Michigan Governor’s Emergency Financial Manager Law, which has resulted in the hostile takeover of local governments by the State.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is one of the most influential policy groups in the state of Michigan and has received much of its funding from conservative foundations and families including Grand Rapids businessmen Peter Cook and Dick & Betsy DeVos.
For the Press to not mention any of these aspects of the work that the Center engages in is a disservice to the public.
It should also not be surprising that a member of the commercial news media would end up in such a position. Many former journalists tend to enter the world of either politics or corporate America due to their personal interests or experience of having access to centers of power. It is not surprising that Schieber would end up at the Mackinac Center and in many ways in makes perfect sense.
WOOD TV political reporter Rick Albin is a former staff person for Pete Hoekstra, when Hoekstra was a member of Congress. The station manager at WOOD TV 8, Diane Kionowski is also not neutral in her position in this community, since she is a board member of the Economics Club of Grand Rapids. The Econ Club is a collection of West Michigan power brokers from the business, political and non-profit communities.
Stabenow, the 2012 Farm Bill and running for re-election
Yesterday, MLive posted a brief story based upon a speech that Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow gave in Lansing to the Michigan Agri-Business Association.
The article, by Press reporter Jim Harger, states that Stabenow is trying to make the best of the Super Committee debacle in her role as the Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. The article adds that she and other committee leaders were able to agree on $23 billion worth of cuts in the Agriculture Department’s budget.
Most of the cuts were in subsidies and the consolidation of farmland conservation programs, although there are no details on which subsidies will be cut and which farm industries will be impacted because of the cuts. It is worth looking at which industries and which farmers in Michigan have benefited from Farm Bill subsidies in the past and it is worth noting that there are some misconceptions about agricultural subsidies, which is the topic of a new report from Food and Water Watch.
The MLive story does provide a link to Stabenow’s speech from yesterday, but they offer up no analysis. The beginning of her speech deals with the MF Global scandal, which essentially means that billions of dollars will be lost to numerous investors, particularly those in the agricultural sector, because of the corporate greed and fraudulent behavior of those involved in speculative capital.
The second part of the Senator’s speech dealt specifically with the future of agri-business in Michigan. She states, “Michigan Agriculture is strong and growing, not only because of our incredible growers and producers, but because of companies like yours that provide services and products to farmers, in crop protection, crop fertility, grain handlers, farm credit, equipment manufacturing.”
Stabenow made such a statement since she was addressing a mostly non-farming audience at the 2012 Michigan Agri-business Association conference that is currently taking place in Lansing. The Michigan Senator addressed that audience by reflecting on her visits to such agri-business sites over the past year in Michigan, places like the Dow AgriSciences in Harbor Beach and the DuPont Pioneer and the Monsanto facilities in Constantine.
This should give us an indication of where the Senator’s allegiance lies……..with the Agri-business industry and not with small farmers and farmers which promote organic, local and sustainable practices.
There is further indication of this based on the presenters at the 2012 Michigan Agri-Business Association conference. One can see that the majority of those speaking at technicians, lawyers, government ag committee people, trade associations and representatives of the global food cartel such as Monsanto. Now it is certainly hard to know whether or not small farmers and local farmers committed to sustainable practices are in attendance, but they certainly are not represented on any of the breakout sessions listed.
Considering that Senator Stabenow is in re-election mode, it is less likely that she will be receptive to those sectors of society, which cannot afford to financially influence electoral outcomes. According to OpenSecrets, the number one PAC donors for her re-election campaign have been Agribusiness ($222,231). In the breakdown of industries making financial contributions, 2 of the top 20 are also branches of the Agribusiness sector.
This is information that MLive omitted from their story and it is information that doesn’t appear to be very optimistic for those working on a state campaign to get Stabenow to push for major changes in the 2012 Farm Bill that will benefit small farmers and the public in general.
The speaker at Monday’s January Series lecture at Calvin College was Eric Metaxas, Christian author of several books, most recently a biography on the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
As someone who read and was inspired by Bonhoeffer’s writing nearly 30 years ago, I was curious as to what new information Metaxas might provide in his lecture. I have not read the speakers book on Bonhoeffer, but will say up front that I was deeply disappointed by what the author had to say.
Metaxas spent way too much time telling jokes about himself and the evolution of his own religious development, so much so that he did not even mention Bonhoeffer until 20 minutes in to his speech.
Metaxas gave a brief overview of Bonhoeffer and his family and did mention that Bonhoeffer was taught by his father to think critically and logically, which he then applied in his passion for theology.
Metaxas noted that Bonhoeffer excelled in the university and finished his doctorate at the age of 21. One question that Bonhoeffer grappled with was “the meaning of the church in the world,” according to Metaxas. Bonhoeffer at one point went to the US where he spent some time at Union Theological Seminary. Bonhoeffer was then invite to visit a Black Baptist Church by a fellow student, an experience that deeply touched him. The German theologian was mostly impressed with the social and cultural significance of what he experienced at this Black congregation. The experience had a profound impact on his theological understanding and had a tremendous impact on his courage to speak out against fascism.
When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany it was around the time that the National Socialist Party is coming to power. Bonhoeffer was from the very beginning of Nazi Germany a critic of the fascist regime. Just two days after Hitler comes to power Bonhoeffer challenged the authority that Adolph Hitler was claiming as the new Furher.
In 1934, Bonhoeffer was part of writing the Barmen Declaration, a statement that essentially said this group of Christians were distinguishing themselves from the state controlled religion in Nazi Germany. In the 1935 Bonhoeffer was asked to lead a seminary that was viewed as an outlaw school that was shut down by the Gestapo at one point, which drove the school underground. Eventually, the school was disbanded as the Nazi repression increased against anyone who questioned the regime.
At one point Bonhoeffer was invited to come back to the US, but he quickly realized that he could not in good conscience abandon the struggle in Germany against the power of the Nazi regime. Here is a fabulous clip from Martin Doblmeler’s excellent documentary entitled Bonhoeffer, where one of the theologian’s students reflects on Bonhoeffer’s decision to come back to Germany. Bonhoeffer himself quoted the prophet Isaiah who said, “those who don’t fear, don’t flee.”
After 3 weeks Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and quickly came in contact with the German resistance movement, particularly those who worked in the area of military intelligence. Bonhoeffer then travels on behalf of the German Intelligence community and meets with people in the Allied countries to share information with them that would help undermine the Nazi campaign of imperialist expansion.
Metaxas then mentions that Bonhoeffer fell in love and says this revelation was something new that the author reveals that had not been presented before, a claim is not true since the documentary already mentioned deals with the theologian love affair.
Metaxas then states that Bonhoeffer was originally arrested for his role in trying to assist some Jews who were trying to escape the country. He is sent to a military prison with the belief that he will get out soon, but he ends up spending the rest of his life there. The Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler happens, but fails and it is at this moment that Bonhoeffer’s name is revealed to the Nazi, which results in his transfer to a concentration camp. He was hung the very next day.
The speaker ended his talk by referencing a statement from Bonhoeffer about his belief in the resurrection, which means you have overcome your fear of death in order to be a true believer. Metaxas tries to present this belief that Bonhoeffer experienced to those in the audience and then walks off the stage without taking any questions.
In many ways I felt that the speaker did not do justice to the person of Bonhoeffer. Metaxas did not explore Bonhoeffer’s intellectual evolution and his body of work, particularly The Cost of Discipleship, Ethics or Life Together. The speaker also did not spend adequate time exploring the tremendous sacrifices that Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church took in resisting the Nazi regime.
My ambivalence about Metaxas was deepened during his opening remarks where he stated that he used to work for Chuck Colson and referred to as his hero. This seems rather contradictory to writing a biography on Bonhoeffer, someone who has inspired radical left Christians for decades, with Colson who advocates far right religious views.
The Bloom Collective is hosting a film this Thursday entitled If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.
If a Tree Falls is the remarkable story of the Earth Liberation Front’s rise and fall, told through the transformation and radicalization of one of its members, Daniel McGowan. Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-and-robbers thriller, the film interweaves a chronicle of McGowan facing life in prison with a dramatic investigation of the events that led to his involvement with the ELF. Using never-before-seen archival footage and intimate interviews — with cell members and with the prosecutor and detective who were chasing them — IF A TREE FALLS asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and the way we define terrorism.
Before the film people are invited to write letters of support to Marie Mason, who is in federal prison and was sentenced to 22 years for property destruction in which not one person was injured. The letter writing will be from 6:30 – 7:00PM.
The Bloom Collective will be providing soup, but anyone wishing to bring food or beverages is welcomed to do so.
If A Tree Falls
Thursday, January 12
7:00PM
Bloom Collective
671 Davis NW, Grand Rapids
lower level of the Steepletown Community Center
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 