POLITICS AND FUNDING OF BRIDGE PLAZA PROJECTS

September 8, 2010, Site of former Blue Water Free Methodist Church--Was the congregation happy to move?

What is the future of the biggest infrastructure remodel in St. Clair County? Let's keep our eye on the ball, not just the wrecking ball. Has the Blue Water Bridge Plaza demolition & reconstruction project secured anymore than the 19% actual funding of the estimated $583 million for completion needed, last reported in the Times Herald on March 1, 2010? Apparently MDOT's effort to make a huge second Ambassador Bridge Plaza south of the current one has fallen short of funds, and been rejected. [see 9-20-10 report of "The Windsor Square" http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2010/07/27/no-excuses-now-build-the-ambassador-bridge-project-already/ ]

Also overdue for investigation are the financial benefits [mitigation] received by Port Huron and St. Clair County to offset the losses we see almost daily in the pages of the Times Herald--pictures of perfectly good homes and businesses [and their tax base] demolished in the path of Bridge Plaza [Homeland Security] expansion. Rep. Candice Miller was instrumental in bring this plaza reconstruction to our town. She, MDOT, and the Times Herald should now provide updated accounting on the specifics of how this disruption of neighborhoods and businesses helps us.

Riverside Condominiums, of sound construction, being brought down, 8-25-10 Times Herald photo

The Times Herald negotiated with MDOT a weekly update on the number of completed home demolitions in the Bridge Plaza footprint. It features such information in frequent news reports headlined, "Bringing Down the Houses." What would serve the community better, with contribution from Rep. Miller and MDOT, would be weekly reports titled, "Bringing Up the Wages & Jobs in the Bridge Plaza Area." It would feature the actual contract money spent each week, of the estimated 583 million total, and the portion that went into the pockets of City of Port Huron, and St. Clair County, citizens and businesses.

Torrelo Demolitions has made some money, and the owner, a resident of the county, is investing in a new home in the City of Port Huron. There is some good in that.

Many footprint area residents have received buyouts and moved. What money has MDOT expended on this so far, demolitions and buyouts? A mixed blessing at best. How many of them bought new homes in the City of Port Huron? Their old neighborhoods are decimated, and remaining residents complain that some of those left are converting what were their homes, into rentals. [This will be illegal if a currently consider City Council resolution persists.]

study was done, and community group formed, to study the economic effects of the Bridge Plaza project and design new economic developments in our area. The T.H. 9-16-10 opinion page column by Jeff Beckett attests to the ongoing local effort of this St. Clair County Economic Strategic Development Plan, and everybody hopes some good progress will come of this. Wilbur Smith Associates, with offices from Houston to Hong Cong [as per their website], was to oversee this 1 million dollar project. How much have they been paid thus far—is the reported $220,000 the whole amount? Is there not a remaining $780, 000? Has our community group been paid, or are they to be paid, anything for their role in actually implementing the plan?

A bar graph should be published on a regular basis. Two columns: total thus far spent on the Blue Water Bridge Plaza, and the amount of that spent to local benefit. These are our tax dollars being expended. The infrastructure here and across the nation continues to crumble around us. Please Rep. Miller, MDOT, and Times Herald give us the facts and figures.

From Friends Committee on National Legislation leaflet

Our War on Terrorism and Homeland Security mindset of the past 10 years has contributed to the scuttling of our economy, and greatly diminished traffic across the Blue Water Bridge--one of the presumed reasons for the new plaza. The other dominant one being that the new plaza design would protect the bridge itself from terrorists. Misspent money on overwrought security here and countrywide has contributed to the self-inflicted sabotage of the very economic lifestyle we sought to make safe from all attack.


There are only two powers in the world--the power of the sword and the power of the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit. --- Napoleon

Dismiss all anxiety from your minds. Present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude. Then God's own peace, which is beyond all understanding, will stand guard over your heart and minds, in Christ Jesus. -- Philippians 4:4-7


Illumination by Kathy Brahney

CAPAC MICHIGAN, SUMMER MIGRANT PROGRAM, 1967

From a mural by Diego Rivera

The excerpts below are from a report I did when 20 years old and a student at Michigan State University. I'd been given the great opportunity [during the summers of 1966, 1967, and 1968] to work alongside migrant farm workers families in the Capac, MI area by a Spanish-speaking Detroit diocese priest, Fr. Joe Melton, with financial support from Fr. Hogan in Lakeport, MI and the Deanery of Catholic Women. Most weeks I'd work about 3 to 4 days in the fields--picking pickles and hoeing sugar beets--and the other time spent trying to organize migrant access to social, job, and church services.

It was a time when the organizing of farmworkers by Cesar Chavez in California was just becoming known in Michigan. No one here had the illusion there'd be farm labor strikes in Michigan where, as at North camp, the families of labor crews came from many disparate places, and never stayed long at one place as they followed the rumors of available harvests. Some of these Mexican American families had small homes in rural Texas or Florida, but they were seldom at home. The workers of California had possibility of more solidarity, in the stability of working closer to their communities. Baldemar Velasquez' Farm Labor Organizing Committee of Toledo, Ohio did have some success, most in that area's tomato fields. In our local area, there was a one day labor stoppage due to Weller Pickles [Croswell, MI] paycheck irregularities, mediated by Fr. Melton and a FLOC representative.

Understandably, the hope of most field workers was to migrate out of the migrant stream into stable, better paying jobs, whether on farms, in towns or cities. In the passages to follow [the whole report was five times longer] I've added some clarifying comments. The writing is dry, when I fashioned myself a grassroots, hands-on social scientist/community organizer, but tells of that era, when there were perhaps ten times more agricultural workers in our state than there are now. It was also a time of national "War on Poverty" programs—almost in complete retreat now.

CAPAC SUMMER MIGRANT PROGRAM, 1967 [written in March of 1968]

As planned, this [past] summer I was to be responsible for helping the people of the camps develop a sense of hope, and for helping the community [towns of Emmet & Capac, MI] to be responsive to the spirit. Efforts were to be concentrated in two areas. First I was to relate the various interested organizations to the needs felt by the migrant people. These efforts were to center on the Capac Community Assistance Center and it director Bob Aguinaga. Second, I was to be a young adult religious formation program in which those of the community were to share ideas and feeling about God with those at the camps. While carrying out these commitments I lived and worked with the migrants. As it turned out, being with the people became the foundation and the determinant for everything that happened this past summer. …

Moving into North camp was a problem. [located ~2miles north of town on Capac Rd, then 1 mile west—abandoned and demolished over 35 years ago; I remember the multiple seat holed outhouses, and a string of barbed wire around the 20 or so wood shacks] The people of the camp were very accepting from the time of my first visit, but those who owned the camp were much less so. Michigan Sugar Company owns North camp. Their field man was quite worried when I told him of my desire to live at the camp and work in the fields. Although he was in charge of the labor force in our area, he had no authority over such decisions. My application had to be made directly with the man who controlled all company labor operations at the company office in Croswell, forty miles away.

On the day I went to Croswell he wasn't in, so I talked to one of his associates in the office. After I had made a fairly long and careful explanation of my purposed he was ready to let me sign a work contract. Then I mentioned that besides working I also wanted to live in the labor camp. I could see that he could make no sense of this. He could understand a person who worked for the church wanting to become a little closer to the people to understand them better—but to live with them? Suddenly he was telling me that finalizing a contract was really not his business anyway, and that he would have to clear everything with his superior. There should be no problem however, and in a couple of days I would be contacted and contracted by the local field man who lives in Capac. That was the last I heard from Michigan Sugar Company. A week and a half later I moved in anyway. This was mid-July and the pickle-picking would start toward the end of the month. I had convinced Weller Pickle Company of my "good intentions." It was unlikely that, in the couple of weeks that remained before they were to lease their camp out to Weller, Michigan Sugar would go through the trouble of tying to evict me. [and they didn't] …

North camp license--expired; camp long gone as well

Thus began my stay at North camp. What the companies both feared to varying degrees was that I would become a labor organizer and lead an insurrection against their corporations. [some self aggrandizement here, tempered by mild sarcasm, and some over-projection as to the companies thoughts about my presence; I did realize that listening to the people of the camp's concerns was most important] The small farmers to a no lesser degree feel threatened by labor organization. But those who most fear unionizing are many of the migratory workers themselves. They have to work in order to live. They have no resources to rely upon in time of unemployment. Pancho said that since both of his boys were old enough to work, the four of his family could work intermittently and still get by. The children of the family next door were small. Their parents had to work whenever possible. In North camp each family had its own situation and its own aspirations. Unity was hard to conceive of when each one had his own to look after.

UFWOC March to Sacramento, CA

[A group of us did make a concerted attempt at change.]
Many married men wanted training for new occupations, but marriage made them ineligible for the High School Education Project [HEP, a paid GED program] and any other program which had no provision for family support. The same problem of obtaining training and still receiving a livable income confronts many single men too old to qualify for HEP. The Michigan Development & Training Agency [project that was run by the MI unemployment office] offers a wage along with its training sessions. After many phone calls [to these offices] and after a trip to Detroit with five prospective applicants [in which we had to wait many hours due to their not being ready for us, and lack of translators--besides my (2^nd year Spanish) self--to help with forms], we found no opening at this particular time. We were asked to try again. By now the group has dispersed itself in to Florida and Texas. They are not likely to try again.

[One of them] Homer had been offered a job with an automobile assembly plant in Detroit. He couldn't find a place to live where he would still have some Spanish-speaking people as friends. A few days later all the people had left North camp and Homer was on his way back to Florida to work for a farmer he had worked for once before.

[Addendum: Later on I learned that Homer, due in part to letters our group had sent to Congress and the Labor Department voicing our frustration, did eventually get training as a welder in a similar Florida program.]

Mass during Cesar Chavez' Forty Day Fast 1968, Photo by Jon Lewis

Our efforts throughout our lives barely scratch the surface, but it's better to try to dig in, than not to. A purpose of this posting near Labor Day & 9-11, is to encourage new positive steps towards creative labor, jobs, and justice projects at home and internationally. Locally we've started an Alternative Service Opportunities agency, perhaps to be renamed Community National Service, or Blue Ops, … to recruit for our county Volunteer Action Center, AmeriCorps and Peace Corps as initial objectives. Years ago a little investment of my time and money, supported by church mentors and farmworker families , has made for a lifetime of changed attitude. Muchisimas gracias a todos que me han ayudado. May we help others to the same great gift.

"I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of humanity is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice." --Cesar Chavez


Some answers to Terrorism on the date of 9-11

If we believe that God does not intend us to live in fear, how do we make the conscious decision to live unafraid? Perhaps a new spiritual discipline based in mindfulness, compassion, humility, and solidarity can move us from fear to freedom.

Our culture of addictive consumerism prevents us from seeing and believing the truth about ourselves. And what is that truth? We are sons of God. We are daughters of the Most High Creator. We remember this through contemplative prayer, which teaches us that every moment is a sacred invitation from God to become fully human and fully alive. --Words of Tom Cordaro

For more of his thoughts on truth-will-make-us-free freedom, see his book, Be Not Afraid: An Alternative to the "War on Terror" available from Amazon.com.

IMMIGRANTS MET BY A WALL OF GUNS IN THE BORDER LANDS--WANTED: JUSTICE FOR FARM WORKERS

Making the rounds of the guns' righters websites was the Mexican army's discovery and confiscation of a drug gang's huge arsenal in an orchard hideaway south of the border on May 12, 2010. [ original article in La Jornada—respected left leaning Mexican national newspaper 1 ] For some reason this was to offer further proof of how we must arm ourselves to the hilt on our north side, to guard against Mexican incursion. Unfortunately, Mexican drug syndicates operate with army-sized armaments only because of the liberal supply from gun sellers in the U.S., paid for with drug money provided by U.S. customers. [see NYT story on the problem 2 ]. Without us they have no market for their goods, and no open-ended access to guns galore. We are our own worst enemy in this regard, but who gets hurt?

Since 2006, 28,000 Mexican citizens have been caught dead in the cross-fire between Mexican army and drug cartels. There have been few if any U.S. citizen casualties north of the border. An untold number of migrants trying to cross our border have died, some by violence others by exposure. The Zetas gang recently executed 72, kidnapped before they could make the border, perhaps because they couldn't raise ransom from poor families further south, but probably because they refused to join in the gang's transporting drugs to the USA. 3, 4 They died violent deaths by resisting being part of this violent business—shot dead by weapons procured in the USA, paid for by profits made in the USA. God bless their strong, nonviolent witness.

Etching by Fritz Eichenberg--published in NYC "Catholic Worker" newspaper

Why do the migrants come from Mexico, Central and Latin America to take these risks--long journeys and illegal crossings? Same reason you and I get up every morning to go to work—to make a living for self and family, to make a better world. And in their case, poverty is a most powerful motivator. The gainful employments they may find are our society's leftover farm labor, construction and service jobs. Should we be irate and armed against their efforts, or welcome their contribution. The Statue of Liberty and the Bible recommend open arms.

My experience as a young adult working and living in Capac, MI area migrant camps summers of 1966, 67, 68, was to be kindly received by the farm workers from south Texas. This was a Catholic Church project helping in a small way to organize for social services. They were Mexican American U.S. citizens trying to pursue a livelihood of simple homes in neighborhoods back in Carrizo Springs and Crystal City, TX, by traveling all over the Midwest most of the year, harvesting our crops, putting the food on our tables.

It was a time when "La Causa" -- Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers Organizing Committee in California --was just becoming known nationally. For the people I lived and picked pickles with [for Aunt Jane's and Weller's of Croswell, MI] in North Camp [W. of the road N. out of Capac towards Yale], it was difficult to envision forming a union for labor rights. They went from Texas to Florida, West & East Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, and back around again, every year, with Minnesota sometimes thrown in. Chasing the crops, keeping family together and fed, cars in running order, and some school for their children, were constant organizing challenges. Still there was interest in the solidarity to bring justice and opportunity, that was preached by Cesar Chavez and the members of his union. To be continued next week.

!Que viva la huelga! [ Long live the strike—the spirit of self-sacrifice for common justice! ] Farmers, factory, construction, and service workers included. In spirit, and on the ground, recognizing all the difficulties of implementation.

!Happy Labor Day!

1. http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/05/12/index.php?section=politica&article=007n1pol

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/us/15guns.html

3. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129427837&ft=1&f=129427837

4. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129583155

IN THE IRAQI DESERT, U.S. ARMY ABANDONS OIL POWER, FOR SOLAR & WIND

To minimize 'serious' casualties, a top commander in Iraq is calling for renewable energy to reduce demand for petroleum to fuel generators at US outposts. That, in turn, would reduce the number of vulnerable fuel convoys, such as these entering Kuwait. By Gustavo Ferrari, AP, 2006

The irony of our war in Iraq has been excruciating on many fronts. We now try to wind it down. Back in September 2006 there was a headline that hit me like an oil gusher: "In the Iraqi war zone, U.S. Army calls for 'green' power."[Originally in the Christian Science Monitor, 9-7-06] The military strategists had determined that in order to secure their energy needs in the desert, solar and wind power were much more suitable than their oil convoy dependent diesel generators. They put out an urgent appeal for these alternative energy sources, so they could be more secure as they occupy Iraq, to guarantee access to its oilfields.

Demo of solar/wind unit installed at Ft. Irwin, USA

Why not cut out the whole destructive armed forces middlemen, and instead deploy alternative energy in every town in America, thereby securing our energy needs locally, without having to occupy foreign lands? Contrary to this logic, we're developing solar/wind units that can be dropped to troops in desert or on mountaintops. Please read this uniquely informative article. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2006-09-07-army-green-power_x.htm

Yes, it would be a complicated effort-- converting from our oil dependent infrastructure, but it's also inevitable. We do have the capability. It requires a dedicated national effort, using our own national resources. We must convert from this wasteful harmful investment in military technology, and make direct investment in the civilian sector. Applied science and technology to meet the practical peaceful productive needs of our society. This idea that military research and development is the best way to spin off technical benefits to the rest of the country is counterintuitive mumbo jumbo.



Below is an until now unpublished commentary I wrote in the week after finding the above news story.

The oil convoy lifelines to our troops occupying Iraq are an Achilles heel. That's where the insurgents hit us. In the land of oil and desert heat, we need petroleum to fuel generators for the lights and power and a.c. that keep our forward bases running. To correct this strategic vulnerability we're installing advanced solar collectors and wind generators. The new tech that can help make the U.S. independent of oil is therefore being driven by the needs of our killing machine imposed in Iraq because of our overwhelming ongoing dependence.

Can't we be more pro-active and direct in meeting the needs of our society? Is the only credible method of tech development to be achieved through the military defense industry? Is it not serious science if it doesn't come out of think tanks and Pentagon projects whose bottom line is the imperative to kill others to secure one's own lifestyle?

cientists and businessmen can be powerful diplomats, ambassadors of good will. Let's stop requiring that the end state of their research must somehow issue from the gun barrels of lethal weapons. Direct R & D for clean energy, needs to receive more government and private funding than the military option.




Isn't it sad that our best creative efforts have become imbedded in a permanent military industry? Our natural tendency to rule roughshod over other cultures from American Indians to the peoples of Iraq is historical reality. But our faith points us towards a completely different reality.


Dying You destroyed our death. Rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus come in glory. [From the Catholic mass just after the Consecration] Our kingdom is not of this world. Each of us has a very limited time on the planet. None of us will cheat death no matter the level of our national and personal security. It is how we live that will carry our souls, the level of our kindness and our truly compassionate conservatism.






et's live within our means, by creating the means for national and personal energy independence. "If you want peace, work for justice." --Pope Paul VI No more unjust wars to corner the world's resources. We live in an interdependent world that would like us to lead toward energy solutions, not energy servitude.

Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010, NYT photo---- Members of the last American combat brigade [>50,000 others remain] in Iraq crossed into Kuwait early on Thursday as the military neared its Aug. 31 deadline to end combat operations

Related article to article sited above: http://www.off-grid.net/2010/07/09/us-army-trials-off-grid-living/

Illuminations by Kathy Brahney

BABEL REMIXED—THE POWER WITHIN A NEW WAVE OF TRANSLATION—TRUE INSTRUMENTS OF PEACEMAKING

Pentecost Experience. The triangularization that leads out from the Holy Spirit: "Each one heard them speaking in their own language." Acts 2:6



Last week I stated:

ope-filled, informed pragmatic help is on the horizon. We'll take a look at the inspired efforts of a growing number of our nation's young people to counter "Tower of Babelism" next week.







This hope comes from a article entitled, "For American Students, Life Lessons in the Mideast," [8-8-10 New York Times] and gives a positive long term solution to our war-driven problems in the Middle East [and elsewhere to be sure]. We have a Tower of Babel situation; havoc created by hatreds, fundamental misunderstandings, and total reliance on weapons—spread out from Israel and Iraq to all neighboring countries.

Palestinian stones of David against Israeli Goliaths. Photo by Larry Towell, Shati Refugee Camp, Gaza 1993

We start to change the conflict by learning the language and culture of the place in conflict. Those who take the time to do this are inspired and inspiring. More of our young people are choosing this path. There is a young man from Marysville, MI [son of a nurse at Physician HealthCare Network I worked with] who right now studies Arabic in Jordan [with 2 years of Arabic in so far at MSU]. Last summer he was a Michigan Peace Teams volunteer witnessing the troubles in the West Bank.

s the article cited above informs, the numbers of young adults taking this path of "critical" foreign language study has increased six fold from 2002 to 2007, at 3339 students when last counted. Part of this is due to the State Department's creation of the Critical Language Scholarship Program. Yet we need so many more. There are one and a half million U.S. soldiers. Extremely few speak useful fluent Arabic, Pashtu, or Dari. Even our "critical" diplomatic missions have a dearth of true foreign language speakers.

Listen to the opinions of some of these students, and then read the full article if possible. U.S. citizens interested in real lasting national security need to call with one voice for a huge mobilization of foreign language proficiency.

ore important, these students say they now view the region completely differently. Kathryn Baxter, 20, a student at American University, said of her time in Egypt, "I will never again look at a story about the Middle East with such a one-sided perspective." Anthony Clairmont, 21, a senior at Sewanee: The University of the South, who spent six months in Morocco, said, "I genuinely enjoyed watching the bottom fall out of every one of my preconceived ideas about the Muslim world."

Yet none of them said they had confronted anti-American sentiment, other than occasional disagreements over foreign policy. "I found that whether I was in Cairo, Aswan, Amman or Damascus, people with whom I interacted wanted to talk about common interests — family, sports, music and economics — rather than our struggles and disagreements," said Richard Frohlichstein, 21, a senior at Georgetown University, who spent last autumn at American University in Cairo.

Or as Anna Oltman, 21, a senior at Franklin & Marshall College, said about her semester in Egypt: "For better or worse, and certainly not unintentionally, 9/11 linked our generation of Americans with its parallel generation of Middle Easterners. We need to get to know them."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/fashion/08Abroad.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

"Christians must become active in every possible way, mobilizing all their resources for the fight against war. First of all there is much to be studied much to be learned. Peace is to be preached, nonviolence is to be explained as a practical method, and not left to be mocked as an outlet for crackpots who want to make a show of themselves. Prayer and sacrifice must be used as the most effective spiritual weapons in the war against war, and like all weapons they must be used with deliberate aim: not just with a vague aspiration for peace and security, but against violence and against war." Thomas Merton writing in 1962 height of the Cold War, in Passion for Peace published in 2006, p. 26

What follows are a background list of what I'd hoped were "wise sayings" for a small youth group on faith & young people politics I'd help start at Port Huron Northern High in the late 90's. The weekly discussions on varied topics were an attempt to offer for my teenagers, and the parallel ones I knew [mostly from hours and days with their soccer teams] something that would touch on the difficult regular questions they faced—an open forum. My kids didn't often come, but sometimes did, and some others did weekly after the fall sports season, and that was enough to keep it going 4 or 5 years.

The first two sayings I believe are from Ghandi. The last four are mine. The very last one my wife composed into a sacred chant. People of our peace faith community in Detroit sang it a number of times through the five years lived beyond predicted, in a strong writer, and strongly loved mother's struggle with cancer. An honor to play this small part, already making the composition attempt below worthwhile. I'm not really certain what the members of the youth group made or make of them.

MYSTERIES / LESSONS FOR THE YEAR 2000


APATHY, IN THE FACE OF RELIEVABLE HUMAN MISERY, IS RADICAL EVIL.

GHANDI, A HINDU AND ADMIRER OF JESUS, SAID: "THE WORK WE DO FOR A SELFLESS GOAL, WITHOUT THOUGHT OF PROFIT, IS ACTUALLY A FORM OF PRAYER."

WHEN I DO SOMETHING PURELY TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE, I AM MOST LIKELY, ALSO, TO BE HELPING MYSELF.

GOD'S LOVE AND MERCY KNOWS NO LIMIT; OUR LOVE AND MERCY SHOULD BE LIKE GOD'S. JESUS GAVE THE NEW COMMANDMENT, "LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU." THIS LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL, NONVIOLENT LOVE.

UNLIMITED GRACE IS AVAILABLE TO US. THE LITTLE GOOD THAT WE TRY TO DO IS MULTIPLIED A HUNDREDFOLD.

BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY—AN ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE GOODNESS HELPS US FACE THE FIERCE UNKNOWN.

Thought provoked by the funeral mass for a 39 year old enfeebled very feisty, blind yet exceedingly sensitive member of our Port Huron community last weekend.
We are all only one faltering step away from eternity.

Illuminations by Kathy Brahney

LEARNING FROM THE FALL OF BABEL’S TOWER, FALSE BARNS OF PLENTY, & AUGUST 9 TH--DAY OF ATONEMENT

The tower of Babel didn't actually fall, but its construction was completely confounded, in that early Babylon city located 50 miles south of present day Baghdad. 1 The ancient people there had migrated in from the north. They were building a tower of power and arrogance, to make their society touch heaven rivaling the gods themselves. God struck their plans with confusion. They abandoned the tower and city, unable even to speak with one another, language fractured into many disparate tongues. Genesis 11:1-9

So what will we leave behind in Babylonia this time, if we exit as required by treaty agreement with Iraq's government—all troops out by the end of 2011? [This promise was re-affirmed by President Obama in a speech to veterans on last Monday Aug 2, —but controversy exists as to the shape of remaining U.S. presence on Iraqi ground—we'll address this later]

Construction of U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in 2007, largest embassy compound in the history of the world, covering a area equal to 80 football fields.
---Picture from online Vanity Fair

There follow excerpts of recent New York Times articles that illustrate some aspects of the disconnected chaos.

From the first days after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, America and Iraq seemed divided by more than language; they never shared the same vocabulary. Perhaps they never could, defined as occupier and occupied, where promises of aid and assistance often had the inflection of condescension. These days, though, they do not even seem to try to listen to each other — too tired to hear the other, too chastised by experience to offer the benefit of doubt. 2 [As Obama Talks Peace, Many Iraqis Are Unsure, 8-3-10 NYT]

rom "A Benchmark of Progress, Electrical Grid Fails Iraqis, 8-1-10 NYT" "The [electricity] shortages since have hobbled economic development and disrupted almost every aspect of daily life. They have transformed cities. Rumbling generators outside homes and other buildings — previously nonexistent — and thickets of wires as dense as a jungle canopy have become as much a part of Iraq's cityscapes as blast walls and checkpoints." "The United States has spent $5 billion on electrical projects alone, nearly 10 percent of the $53 billion it has devoted to rebuilding Iraq, second only to what it has spent on rebuilding Iraq's security forces. " [Woefully inadequate security and electricity after 7 years.] "Even Iraqis suspicious of American motives hoped that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would bring modern, competent governance. Still, the streets are littered with trash, drinking water is polluted, hospitals are bleak and often unsafe, and buildings bombed by the Americans in 2003 or by insurgents since remain ruined shells." 3
For NYT slide show of dismal state of Iraqi electricity grid see: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/07/31/world/ELECTRICITY-13.html

President Obama confirms that we'll be down to 50,000 U.S soldiers in Iraq [from 140,000 at the onset of his administration] buy the end of this month, Aug 31, 2010, and all soldiers out by the end of 2011. Yet are we really leaving Iraq? Many Iraqis don't believe it. "The Americans aren't leaving," Mr. Qahtan Sweid insisted [resident of Baghdad], whatever Mr. Obama had promised. "For one million years, they won't leave. Even if the world was turned upside down, they still wouldn't withdraw." 2 USA Today reports on 8-3-10, "In June 2009, U.S. Forces occupied 357 bases. U.S. Forces currently occupy 121 bases, and are expected to reduce that number to 94 bases by the end of August." 4
nd the U.S. Army paper "Stars and Stripes" in a 8-8-10 article states that we will be down to five major bases by end of 2011, but cautions that disturbing transitions of status and nomenclature are underway. "Can diplomats field their own army? The State Department is laying plans to do precisely that in Iraq, in an unprecedented experiment that U.S. officials and some nervous lawmakers say could be risky."5 Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is asking that a 6000 to 7000 strong Blackwater type private security force be part of their Baghdad diplomatic mission. In addition to the reported residual five major bases, now renamed "Enduring Presence Posts" throughout Iraq, it's not been revealed how many minor "EPP's", and associated private contract forces, will still be deployed where, nor for how long.

It is certain that much blood has been spilled for oil, and that the U.S. government is extremely reluctant to cancel its investment. In a week ago Sunday's scripture we have the parable of the rich fool who built too many barns in which to hoard his resources. Lk 12:15-21 Death came to his door.

All his labor was in vain. We are trying to build giant barns of occupation over entire foreign countries to secure our economic dominance and requisite storehouse of fossil fuels. Instead, as John Pilch implies in his commentary 6, the traditional honorable thing would be to distribute our surplus wealth in shrewd fashion becoming a respected benefactor in the world community. I wrestled with this parable personally, facing a deadline last week on retirement fund investment decisions. None of this is easy in our culture—the widely touted land of plenty.

Ancient City of Babylon

Hope-filled, informed pragmatic help is on the horizon. We'll take a look at the inspired efforts of a growing number of our nation's young people to counter "Tower of Babelism" next week.

TODAY, AUGUST 9 TH – DAY OF ATONEMENT

Jesus, truly a man of his culture, delighted in confronting and confounding the norms, with cosmic timeless human imbued truth. We forget to our own peril, that the Samaritan despised enemy [Muslim] was chosen as the model of God-like mercy between neighbors. When will we stop the ten year killing--hundreds of thousands, Iraqi & Afghans, in retaliation for the 3000 of ours killed in the Trade Towers? These grievous wounds inflicted in far-away lands hurt ourselves also terribly—Mystical Body of Christ. Its pain is felt from Wall Street to Wyandotte, Baghdad to Waziristan. Pray for healing of the collective soul.

August 9, 1943: Franz Jagerstatter's death at the hands of the Nazis, family farmer who would not fight in Hitler's unjust wars. Mea culpa.

August 9, 1943: The death of Edith Stein, Jew become Catholic nun, executed at Auschwitz. Mea culpa.

August 9, 1945: Atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which was the largest center for Christians in the Far East. Mea maxima culpa.

Illuminations by Kathy Brahney

1 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15005b.htm History of the tower from Catholic Encyclopedia.

2 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?_r=2&ref=world
3 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/world/middleeast/02electricity.html
4 http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/08/obama-is-also-pulling-equipment-and-bases-from-iraq/1

5 http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/iraq/state-dept-planning-to-field-a-small-army-in-iraq-1.111839

6 "The Cultural World of Jesus, Cycle C" The Liturgical Press, 1997

7 More on the possible Iraq exit strategy. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/weekinreview/08MYERS.html?ref=middleeast

RETIRE FOREVER THE NUCLEAR BOMB and GHANA CONTINUED

"After the passage of nearly four decades and a concomitant growth in our understanding of the ever growing horror of nuclear war, we must shape the climate of opinion which will make it possible for our country to express profound sorrow over the atomic bombing in 1945. Without that sorrow, there is no possibility of finding a way to repudiate future use of nuclear weapons…"
The U. S. Catholic Bishops, "The Challenge of Peace" pastoral letter of 1983 [Sec 302]

REMEMBER HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI, AUGUST 6, AUGUST 9, 1945

RETIRE FOREVER THE NUCLEAR BOMB!

FOR 65 YEARS THIS SUMMER

IT HAS TERRORIZED THE WORLD.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of is scientists, the hopes of its children…This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
--President Dwight D. Eisenhower


By 1990 83% of the U.S. manufacturing capital base was devoted to the Department of Defense. 1

GHANA CONTINUED—VISITORS AT RURAL SUNDAY SERVICES

In a more rural costal area west of Accra, at a simple, roofed but open to the air Catholic chapel, the young Deacon [no priest available for Sunday mass] beamed and bemused that the "Friday birthday's" collection had beaten all previous records.

This was a friendly ongoing namesakes competition in which each of the seven days of the week [names are traditionally given in Ghana by the name of the day you were born] goes up to the collection basket as a group when that name's called. Friday = Kofi; Saturday = Kwame; etc. Not knowing the day I was born, I randomly chose Kofi. My brother Dan and I, the only whites in attendance, decently but certainly not the most beautifully dressed, wanted to give something yet inexcessive, so I joined the line with the Kofis and put in a crumpled-in-fist 5 cedi note {~$3}, reverse palming it in the basket to be discreet. It seemed a reasonable amount; something you'd spend on a quick trip to the market for a carton of milk and six eggs in Accra—yet still caused a little stir at the "results" announcement, and a few tittering but polite glances from across the aisle.


eneath a bright blue sky the little church was nearly full. Enthusiastic were the readers and song participation—back and forth responsorials between the men and the women to the beat of an inspired ten-year-old's drum. Towards the end of the 2 hour prayer and scripture service, unassuming Dan and I [a little more assuming—did take the mike for a minute or two, saying hello, as invited by the deacon] were introduced in the all black church as "dignitaries." Again there was a healthy dose of mirth in the deacon's expression, subtly echoed by the congregation.



Impressive was the presence at church of young men from teen through mid-twenties, outnumbering all the oldsters and women, in an area where they were the ones strong enough to fish for the village, pushing long wooden boats with large oar-like rudders out through the pounding surf. Prayers and fishermen have an ancient association.






Illumination by Kathy Brahney

1 From Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke
By Chalmers Johnson, Le Monde diplomatique
Posted on April 26, 2008, Printed on April 26, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/83555/

Well worth reading.