NYPD Admits Muslim Spy Program Generated No Leads or Terrorism Investigations -- US has Turned Blind Eye to Far Right-Wing Extremist

NYPD Admits Muslim Spy Program Generated No Leads or Terrorism Investigations -- Only Controversy

Daryl Johnson, a former analyst for the Department of Homeland Security warned that the election of the first African-American president, combined with recession-era economic anxieties, could fuel a rise in far-right violence.

See “When Violent Right-Wing Extremism is Ignored”

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From Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and PoliticalClimate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment

The current economic and political climate has some similarities to the 1990s when rightwing extremism experienced a resurgence fueled largely by an economic recession, criticism about the outsourcing of jobs, and the perceived threat to U.S. power and sovereignty by other foreign powers.

During the 1990s, these issues contributed to the growth in the number of domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups and an increase in violent acts targeting government facilities, law enforcement officers, banks, and infrastructure sectors. 

Growth of these groups subsided in reaction to increased government scrutiny as a result of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and disrupted plots, improvements in the economy, and the continued U.S. standing as the preeminent world power.

The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.

                                               

(U)  Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.  It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

Politicians, Do No Harm

Aaron Carroll, a pediatrician and professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine commented, "In politics . . . you win by scaring people into thinking [about] what the other side will do."  Perhaps each side could take an ethics lesson from the medical profession "to do no harm" As the Te Tao Ching reads (60) . . .

Ruling a big nation is like frying a small fish.
With the presence of Tao beneath heaven,
The evil (spirits) cannot extent their power.
It's not only that the evil (spirits) cannot extent their power,
But its power cannot harm anyone.
It was not even that their power cannot harm anyone,
A ruler also DOES No HARM to anyone.
Since BOTH do no mutual harm to each other,
THEN, THE Virtue of PEACE WAS RETURNED TO THE PEOPLE.

Andrew Bacevich: how war without end became the rule

Andrew Bacevich is the soldier turned writer who’s still unlearning and puncturing the Washington Rules of national security. The rules have turned into doctrines, he’s telling us, of global war forever. He is talking about the scales that have fallen from the eyes of a slow learner, as he calls himself — a dutiful, conformist Army officer who woke up at the end of the Cold War twenty years ago to the thought that the orthodoxy he’d accepted was a sham.

Andrew Bacevich’s military career ran from West Point to Vietnam to the first Gulf War in 1991. The short form of the story he’s been writing for a decade now is: how unexamined failure in Vietnam became by today a sort of repetition compulsion in Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington Rules is Andrew Bacevich’s fourth book in a project to unmask American empire, militarism, over-reach and what sustains them.

See interview at http://www.radioopensource.org/andrew-bacevich-how-war-without-end-became-the-rule/

A "Theology" of the Second Amendment

“God forbid that we question even a single tenet of the theology of firearms”, writes   E.J. Dionne, Jr  in “The Gag Rule on Guns.  A “theology” rings loudly as I am reminded of the practice of some “Christian right” who are ardent protectors of guns. The article citing a Louisville church where unloaded weapons were allowed at an event celebrating Second Amendment, is one example that prompts the question, how is carrying guns in spaces called church “good news”?

The gun brandishing religious Americans are somehow self-deceived through their use of argumentum ad verecundiam. When asked about the practice of celebrating the Second Amendment (which for them includes bringing one’s weapon to church), interviewed sources (at the Louisville church) referenced the “forefathers of our nation”. There was no mention of the forefathers of the church or the alternative society that emerged in the midst of other nation states or empire, e.g., the Roman Empire. There was no remembrance of the sins of many of our American forefathers who, e.g., generally accepted pro-slavery ideology and practices while applying some kind of interpretive reasoning or biblical "theory", which included biblical texts. Moreover, for these 21st century religious cowboys, the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution seems to be their primary text, while many of the stories and exhortations of the Biblical text that suggest non-violent practices are far from their minds.

It seems that this kind of self-deception is correlative to identities being nurtured, formed, and socialized by the American dominant script, which is one of certitude, privilege, and entitlement. One of the crucial flaws of this religious thinking and practice is the story or script they knowingly or unknowingly embrace about who and what they are. Many of these kinds of church folk have little stomach for doubt and little aptitude or imagination for working with an alternative, counter script; i.e., the Christian narrative in its fullness. Thus having lost their way, they cannot navigate and negotiate their lives through what Walter Brueggemann describes as the “the ragged, disjunctive character of this counter-script.”

“That script is not monolithic, one dimensional or seamless. It is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent. Partly it is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because it has been crafted over time by many committees. But it is also ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because the key character [God] is illusive and irascible in freedom and in sovereignty and in hiddenness.”

These self-deceived quasi churches across the American landscape such as New Bethel Church in Louisville are a mix of an intellectually and spiritually undernourished group of people who call themselves “Christian” while also trying to erect some kind of American ruggedness club. If they are to become more fully human as measured against “authentic, undiminished humanity,” embodied in Jesus, they will need to revive in their collective settings the rich Christian tradition and practice of casuistry with an aim to better understand their connectiveness in this fragmented world of competing narratives. In this case, it is proverbial mixing of oil and water, viz., American nationalism dubbed over and against the Christian narrative.

On another level, this self-deception is what Thomas Merton called Promethean Theology (The New Man): a human obsession with what is "mine" and "thine", i.e., between what is “mine” and what belongs to God. Like the prodigal son, there is separation from what is “his” and the rest of God’s possessions. Seeking a “soul full of my rights”, the gun-brandishing “Christian” has forgotten (from a lack of contemplation) the reality that we are to ‘Never take your own vengeance . . . for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay”, says the Lord.’ Our action is clear, “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; and if he is thirsty, give him a drink . . . do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” (The Letter of Paul to the Romans 12, which is key and context to understanding the often mis-interpreted Chapter 13)

Instead of seeking to defend themselves and our “individual rights”, may they and may we all engage in the work of contemplation, nurture, formation, and socialization by the practices of preaching, liturgy, casuistry, social action, spirituality, and neighboring of all kinds, such as hospitality and non-violent responses. Perhaps we might start with a modest proposal from the Mennonite Central Committee, “Let the Christians of the world agree that they will not kill each other.”

Te-Tao Verse for America

Here is Te-Tao verse for America whose dominant script is a script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism that socializes us all, liberal and conservative. (see Brueggemann's 19 Theses)

When the world has the Way, riding horses are retired to fertilize the fields.

When the world strays from the Way, war horses are bred even in the cities.

Of crimes--none is greater than having things that one desires;

Of disasters--none is greater than not knowing when one has enough.

Of defects--none brings more sorrow than the desire to attain.

Therefore, the contentment one has when he knows that he has enough, is enduring contentment indeed. 

Te (Virtue), 46, Lao-Tzu Te-Tao Ching 

Societal anxiety: the fear of facing reality and ignorance of the ancient text

Chris Hedges, "War on Gays," highlights (among other things) how societal anxiety has led to increased regression on the part of some malignant groups who have become fused in their symptomatic hatred for gays. This is a sign of chronic anxiety called "herding" where groups (organizations) organize their existence around the least mature, poorly defined leaders, the most dependent, or the most dysfunctional members of their “colony” (e.g. Liberty University), instead of adapting toward strength.  

Gay activist and Pastor Mel White highlight a significant point. "What other source of homophobia is there but six verses in the Bible? When Bible literalists preach that LGBT people are going to hell they become Christian terrorists. They use fear as their weapon, like all terrorists. They are seeking to deny our religious and civil rights. They threaten to turn our democracy into a fundamentalist theocracy. 

Fundamentalist and conservative Christian colonies in their sectarian influence are seeking to persuade the empire (government) to legitimize their fear, hatred and delusions instead of utilizing the ancient practices of theological dialogue and casuistry.

Listen to the ignorance: Teen Radio Host Blasts Homosexuality, Blames Obama for Turning Kids Gay

If you want to be less anxious, more fully human and expand your awareness (you know, like Jesus), thus penetrating the narrowness of the conventional religious debate you hear in the media, who predominantly cover the highly reactive fundamentalist and literalist (with flipped lids), here are some sources to begin exploring story, Scripture and theology:

• Reasoning Together: AConversation on Homosexuality  Ted Grimsrud (Author), Mark Thiessen Nation (Author), Foreword by Tony and Peggy Campolo (Editor, Herald Press, 2008.  

• Ted Grimsrud, PortlandLectures

Is Football a Pro-Life Sport? | Religion Dispatches

Is Football a Pro-Life Sport? | Religion Dispatches

Non-violence and the kingdom of God are growing at a snail's pace; what will become of football?

See: The Concussion Blog:
An Education and Communication Outpost from an Athletic Trainer's Perspective