JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE—AT 50 YEARS STILL TOO MUCH UNSAID

Monday before Thanksgiving 2013.  We’ve just remembered the assassination death of President Kennedy 50 years ago last Friday.  Many tributes, many retrospectives, few introspections.  Those who question the one lone shooter {Lee Harvey Oswald} theory, continue to be laughed off the public stage as loony paranoids.  Therefore, less than half of us are adjudged sane by the mainstream media, because most of us [according to the pollsters] do question the circumstances of his death.  And if we are honest, it was whatever is selfish-arrogant-racist-suspicious of the outsider, in each of us, that still kills President Kennedy.

We saw hope of new dedication to peace and service shot down in Dallas.  I was in 11^th grade at St. Johns High School, Jackson, MI —all some of us could do was to make lame jokes about it.

The problem now is that we know in our hearts that the motivation for this crime [since we’ll never know all the details] is clear.   Money, power, and profits from war were deeply threatened by this new direction being sought by our young president.  He’d turned around, and was working to end our involvement in Vietnam, and defuse the Cold War with the Soviets.  Please read the one most level-headed book on the subject, JFK and the Unspeakable, at least the introduction and first chapter—and see my previous entry on this personal, national tragedy.

“War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."--JFK   That day became more distant on the day of his assassination—favoring only those who believe war, security, and profits, are our most important products, and reflect the soul of the nation.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, as all of us, had feet of clay, but he knew how to pray.  May God bless all of us today with a renewed dedication to his vision of peace and service.

Links

http://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1439193886/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385401404&sr=8-1&keywords=jfk+and+the+unspeakable

http://mccarthysweekly-paxvobiscum.blogspot.com/2010/11/jfk-and-unspeakable.html

 

WILFRED OWEN, KIA JUST BEFORE ARMISTICE DAY 1918 NOW AKA VETERANS DAY

Armistice Day, France

 Armistice Day, USA

Some of those I've known who've worked most dedicated to end all war, are veterans of combat.  I think particularly of two ex-Vietnam helicopter pilots - their ceaseless efforts as draft counselors in Lansing, Michigan, trying to keep others out of the conflict they'd just witnessed. 

World War 1 was supposed to be the “war to end all wars.”  At it’s end, Armistice Day November 11 was celebrated as a remembrance of those who died in that war, and the horror of that war.  One who didn’t survive that war, but wrote eloquently, critically, and truthfully about it was Wilfred Owen, British officer and poet.   After being hospitalized for concussion and shell-shock on the frontlines {Sommes, France} during the first months of 1917, he returned to lead troops, earning a medal of honor a year later.

A mentor writer, Siegfried Sassoon [who also criticized the war] had encouraged him to get back on the horse of war—it would be good for his writing.  Back in the thick of trench warfare he corresponds, ‘You said it would be a good thing for my poetry if I went back. That is my consolation for feeling a fool. …This is what the shells scream at me every time: "Haven't you got the wits to keep out of this?"’  He soldiered on, loyal to the men under his command, his medal being awarded for overwhelming an enemy machine gunner and turning the weapon against the Germans, killing an unspecified number.  A month later, still out in front of his soldiers, he was killed by a sniper, one week before the first Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.

e’d known well that war is hell.  His poems are evidence.  Beyond this knowledge and his belief, he persisted in war.  After his first months at the front his faith deepened through the gruesome experience -- "I am more and more a Christian. . . Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed: but do not kill." Letter to his mother, May 1917.
Yet in April 1918, “Talking to his brother whilst home on leave he said that he wanted to return to the front line.’I know I shall be killed. But it's the only place I can make my protest from.’" 

In October, 1918 he writes to his mom, “I lost all my earthly faculties, and I fought like an angel . . . I captured a German Machine Gun and scores of prisoners . . . I only shot one man with my revolver . . . My nerves are in perfect order.”

There is a war of dichotomies going on.  What he’d seen and felt in combat had led to this poem. 

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
 
Is there no hope to arrest the doom, halt the march of war?  The fact that Armistice Day has been renamed Veterans Day, after a Second World War, is a bad omen.  An unending preemptive line of dead soldiers and civilians to commemorate.  PTSD is an epidemic, even with drone warfare.  A veteran dies every day in the U.S. from suicide, more from its other effects.  No one tabulates the PTSD suffering in the countries where wars are fought.  The peace is not yet won by war—will never be.

St. Martin of Tours divides his cloak for a beggar, who turns out to be Christ in a dream. Martin resigns his commission.

 

Today is Martin of Tours' feast day, and Veterans Day.  He told his Roman commander sometime after 300 AD,  "I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ....I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight."

I learned of Wifred Owen’s struggle from a two-man play I saw years ago, “Not About Heroes”.  He was caught, as we all are in some way, in the battle between the world’s vision of heroism, and God’s—revealed in His Son Jesus.  Wilfred saw clearly that pride is the real battlefield, and that people will be more judged by what they do, than what they say.  He writes, "I hate washy pacifists."  And he writes---

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
 
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.




Poetry available from - http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19390  And more -There are 27 of his finest war poems in Minds at War and 19 in Out in the Dark. Both anthologies contain additional information, comment, and extracts from his letters. 

All quotes are available from this article - http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owena.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/22/theater/stage-2-soldier-poets-in-not-about-heroes.html
More references--
http://mason.gmu.edu/~lsmithg/biography.html

 

---

 [M1]

GHANA 2010 – BIKING BACK FROM ABURI BOTANICAL GARDENS, STREET VENDOR DEAL

Aisle - Aburi Botanical Gardens

 

 

Aburi Ghana - mountain town - photo by Rachel Coleman

I pointed my bike down the first world newly paved hi-way.  It still led through the little towns, with neat little cement bright pastel houses lining the way in the small business districts.  In the last one that appeared before steep descent from the mountaintop plateau to the plain of Accra below, I was surrounded and stopped by a bevy of beautiful young black teenage girls, plainly dressed, marketing their last fruits at the end of the day.  These ones had no stalls, just carried in hand what they were selling.

Those that came first could see that I wasn’t interested, my mind on the bike ride home.  I’d more than 25 miles to go—on a bicycle will fragile fruits, not wise, I’d explain, and they retreated.  But the one with the brightest eyes came forward insisting these are the best mangos, and she only had two left.  “Please!  Only one dollar for this one.”
I protested, “No, No, and I’ve no idea if that’s a fair price.” 

“They are good.  It is a fair price.”  She looked for confirming nods from her compatriots who’d now receded to the sidelines, not so interested.  We were eye to eye—the moment of decision.

“OK” I conceded [I’d discovered and held a single dollar bill in my pocket since the transaction began].

She met my gaze more softly now, having won, with a tinge of satisfied compassion.  The mango she’d held with persistent arm outstretched was now replaced with the other one she’d held down at her side.  I noticed the one withdrawn had a bit of draining bruised gash on its underside she’d covered with her hand.

ack up on my bike and pushing forward, the foreigner and the native had made a deal.  It was days later before I got the chance to eat that mango—but it was yet firm and tasty.
 

 

 

 



 

We're all just the parts of God trying to get back together.

 

 

Illumination by Kathy Brahney

THE SPIRITUALITY OF NONVIOLENCE--A REAL PRESENCE--HUMILITY MEETS THE WORLD'S CHALLENGES

I feel like most of the people of the Gospel story who are invited to the King’s banquet.  I’ve a field to buy, or a friend or relative to bury.  I’d like to remain steadfast behind the plowshare of peacemaking, but human concerns constantly deflect.  What do we do when we see clearly what is right and what is wrong, but live among so few that see the same thing, admit to it, and do something about it?  What is the clear path to salvation for a whole society?  How can change of heart, mind and action be accomplished-- together?  Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.  To board the ark again seems such sad surrender for a remnant that is promised its faith can move mountains.

 

  Noah Releases the Dove - by Chagall

There is hope—we are taught to pray with these words. "Thy Kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  In the recent Syria situation our spirituality helped us dodge the bullet of escalated violence.  Pope Francis led the world in a vigil of prayer, fasting, and the word of the Gospel, to turn away from war, toward the nonviolent way of Jesus.  The U. S. didn’t attack Syria.  {This enraged our erstwhile oil allies, the Saudis, because of their Sunni vs. Shia battle across the whole region.}  From an offhand remark of Secretary of State Kerry, to a proposal batted back by Russia—it was then agreed by Syria, its chemical weapons could be destroyed.

Pope Francis Leads Prayer Vigil mass in St. Peters Square for Peace in Syria on September 7, 2013--AFP-Getty Images

Worldwide prayers were answered.  Inscrutable God’s designs, but this deeper war averted, a blessing that could be welcomed by both liberal and conservative Americans.  How do we now deepen this faith in Jesus’ nonviolent love, which does save the world and solve its problems?

In our Port Huron area, we invite you be part of this upcoming course.
              THE SPIRITUALITY OF NONVIOLENCE—THE WORK AND PRAYER OF PEACEMAKING

A series of monthly teachings, provided by Holy Trinity Adult Faith Formation and Pax Christi

Second Thursday of each month

 Starting Nov 14^th, 7 pm in the Thomas Merton Library at St. Stephens Center

Music / prayer, to begin and end each session

First session
November 14 – The problem of Syria: A practical way of prayer-study-action peacemaking
·         The current example of Pope Francis – a review by Michael McCarthy of media coverage
·         The statements and teaching of the modern era Popes, from Pope John XXIII to the present—a slide presentation by Deacon Dennis Crimmins
·         Time for discussion and prayer—handouts for further study and prayer

The Pharisee and the Publican -- Lk 18:9-14

 

Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their country make their way to a refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq July 31, 2012

In all our efforts, on all sides of political questions we must heed scripture’s admonition.  This Sunday’s Gospel {Lk 18:9-14} ends with the words, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  How are we to take this in the land where U.S. “exceptionalism” is insisted on, and proclaimed to all the world?  We’re Number 1!  We must pray for wisdom, and remember these other words of the Gospel as the holy days of Christmas approach.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
 and has lifted up the lowly.
 He has filled the hungry with good things,
 and the rich he has sent away empty.   Lk 1:46-55
                From Mary’s “Magnificat”, as she is expecting the birth of her baby Jesus Our Savior.

The Visitation by Weninger

 

Link references -
 http://paxchristiusa.org/2013/09/03/syria-pope-francis-war-begets-war-violence-begets-violence-calls-for-peace-for-syria/

 http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/global-issues/middle-east/syria/day-of-fasting-and-prayer-for-syria.cfm
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/26/world/middleeast/saudis-faulting-american-policy-on-middle-east.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld

http://catholicphilly.com/2012/08/us-world-news/world-catholic-news/syrian-refugees-face-%E2%80%98terrible%E2%80%99-situation-catholic-aid-workers-say/

 

 

WALL STREET TRIES TO OCCUPY US -- MOVE YOUR MONEY

The Global Corporate Wealth Network--Investment Banking Dominates

The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow.--The size of the dot represents revenue

 

Last week I said I’d recommend something that could be done by every individual concerned about the political - financial direction of our country.  This involves transferring your personal banking from the five big national banks to a local bank or credit union.  It does take time and investigation.  For my wife and I, changing banks from Chase to Eastern Michigan, and dropping a Bank of America managed credit card, was a project of three months, not always easy but good for the soul.

There are many good local places to put your money, so that it is somewhat less likely to be used for irresponsible large investor/speculator leverage schemes, and more likely to do some good in our community.  This may seem like a drop in the bucket, our middle class monies, but it sends a message, is morally consistent with conservative values, and cumulatively could change some of the moral harm big money does in our nation.   It’s a national campaign, “Move your Money”—we are not alone in our discomfort, and our hope.   Explain to the Big Banks why your no longer giving them your business.

What are the risks of continuing down the same path of fiscal fireworks preferred by the Big Money movers?   Right now, our Congress, representing those guys, threatens “we the people” with one more disastrous fiscal cliff after another.

The Big Banks and their bankers, and the financial high rollers, continue to make news, as the country heads towards threatened bankruptcy.  An October 4th Wall Street Journal headline tells the story, “More Than 5,000 Stockbrokers From Expelled Firms Still Selling Securities”.  Business as usual for Wall Street investment banking firms--which did terrible damage to middle class Americans’ savings, in the speculations leading to the banker’s being given government bailout in 2008.

The major financial corporations continue to thwart responsible regulation to stay in the international game of winner-take-all speculations.   They don’t want to be hobbled by the U.S. government in their pursuit of super riches.  Profit is their most important product—there is never enough.  Some digress from this path—“Enough” is good short book by John Bogle, grandfatherly founder of Vanguard funds.  Some, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, begin to look for better ways to use some of their money.

The rich will find it hard to get into heaven riding their heavy laden camels, according to the Gospel.  The rich play by different rules that give them all the best on earth.  But the Good News says that turnabout is fair play for the rich and poor.  That turnabout is virtually guaranteed by Jesus in his story of the beggar Lazarus and Dives {Latin for “rich”}, and in the many times he says “woe” to those who hold on to too much wealth, and His description of the Last Judgment, in Matthew 25 .  The first will be last.  Death leads to eternal life.

Lazarus at the gate of the Rich Man

Apathy in the face of relievable human misery is radical evil.  -- Fr. E.C. McCarthy
 

 

Illumination by Kathy Brahney

More good sources ---

"Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street."   – Mary Elizabeth Lease – Populist orator of the 1890’s      Recurrent problem, prophetic vision.

The 147 Companies That Control Everything – Forbes Magazine article 10-22-11   "Each of these 147 own interlocking stakes of one another and together they control 40% of the wealth in the network [the world’s total corporately held wealth]."
The Top Fifty of these Corporate Owners - from same article - the vast majority, banks and financial holding companies.
1. Barclays plc
 2. Capital Group Companies Inc
 3. FMR Corporation
 4. AXA
 5. State Street Corporation
 6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
 7. Legal & General Group plc
 8. Vanguard Group Inc
 9. UBS AG
 10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
 11. Wellington Management Co LLP
 12. Deutsche Bank AG
 13. Franklin Resources Inc
 14. Credit Suisse Group
 15. Walton Enterprises LLC (holding company for Wal-Mart heirs)
 16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
 17. Natixis
 18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
 20. Legg Mason Inc

"An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy."

As for the private wealth holders --

"Forbes list of wealthiest Americans shows America's rich have more wealth than ever"

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/09/16/forbes_list_of_wealthiest_americans_shows_america_s_rich_have_more_wealth.html

http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2013-01-19/annual-income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four-times

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/why-the-rich-dont-give/309254/

 

OCTOBER---RESPECT ALL LIFE MONTH, NO EXCEPTIONS

Children received medical care in the northern city of Dohuk after a suicide bombing on a school playground killed 13 in the Shiite village of Qabak, Iraq,-    Safin Hamed Agence France-Presse-Getty Images

Every day in Iraq, Syria, so many places, the innocents die--weapons provided by international arms merchants--of whom the USA  is # 1.

 

The coffins of the unborn and the war dead—unnecessary—are draped around our every move as a country. We are a nation of violence expediency.  If it seems to work to our gross benefit, we do it, damn the dead, especially if they’d lived offshore, or in womb out-of-sight, and the millstones gather about our neck.

Violence does not stay in the confines of its designated spot, but spreads its bloody stain outward, a blot on all aspects of society.  A sociopathic epidemic.

Our best efforts are doomed by chronic dis-respect for life.  Each individual life has become superfluous in our grand realpolitik equations.  Life suffers in the economy where the scales of justice have been replaced by a balance that always favors the profit to be made.

Why can’t we help stem the tide of death in Syria?  Because we dynamited the dam in its neighbor Iraq, hoping only oil would overflow.  Why can’t we give our children a college education full of critical thinking possibility, not saddled with debt?  [Because of wasted dollars blown on war.]  Because first they must shoulder a gun in defense of international corporations--as they become consumers of a casual sexuality that provides for abortion disposal of any untoward children that might be the natural result.   Both enterprises accept the death of innocents as legal tender.   Our young people are left holding bags of despair. 

War.   Abortion.  Critical thinking?  Moral responsibility?

 

And powerful financial interests continue to laugh all the way to the bank—with a record student debt {good graphs} in hand.   More on what we can do about Big Banks next week.  See “move your money” for starters.

 

Respect for life in the USA is only a PR campaign, unless it becomes a deeply held conviction that lasts from conception, through full life, till natural death.  It’s all gift from God, not to be tampered with.   There must be consistent rejection of violence in our embracing the right to life.  War will never end till abortion ends.  Abortion will never end till war ends.  Justified violence only disembowels respect for life, and efforts for peace.  Faith—belief in the living promise of Jesus, that eternal life conquers all death—is the only healing remedy.

 

 

“Each of the issues I have identified today—abortion, war, hunger and human rights, euthanasia and capital punishment—is treated as a separate, self-contained topic in our public life. Each is distinct, but an ad hoc approach to each one fails to illustrate how our choices in one area can affect our decisions in other areas. There must be a public attitude of respect for all of life, if public actions are to respect it in concrete cases.”   from lecture-- A Consistent Ethic of Life: Continuing the Dialogue,  Cardinal Joseph Benardin, March 11, 1984 -- its a "seamless garment"

We owe our whole church, especially our young people, this consistency.

 

*************************************

Eileen Egan, who helped found Pax Christi USA, died on this day, Oct 7, 2000.  She first talked of a seamless garment, as she was a leader, advocating for conscientious objection to war, nuclear disarmament, and right to life, within our church.

 

Link references in order --

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/05/army-suicides-predicting-risk-scientists/2793053/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/somatic-psychology/201010/post-abortion-stress-syndrome-pass-does-it-exist   acknowledgement even from the pro-choice side

http://democracyforamerica.com/pages/807-banking-on-education?akid=3467.1781282.HDqR3S&rd=1&source=email&t=1

http://www.moveyourmoneyproject.org/

http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bernardinwade.html

 

 

CUBA REVISITED, NO FINE -- TIME TO END THE CUBA EMBARGO

Hijas de la Pasion de Jesucristo y de Maria Dolorosa, and my wife Ande, at their convent en la Parroquia de Santa Barbara, Barrio de Parraga, Havana Cuba, April 2001 - No fine yet for breaking the walls of embargo.  

This week's Gospel is the story of Dives [the rich, in Latin] and Lazarus, the beggar at his gate.  It was the scripture that came to my mind at the time my wife and I were threatened with $1000 plus fines for a vacation/mission trip to Cuba in April 2001 when we delivered some medical supplies to a group of nuns working with the poor in Havana.  Technically we were trading with the enemy.
We contested in administrative court in Washington D.C., and in Feb. 2005, were given a $5000 plus penalty.

he opposing lawyers did seem moved by our argument that included the parable of Dives & Lazarus, warning of the fate of those who persist in putting walls between haves and have-nots.  Our attorney made a quick appeal of the judgment against us.  There has been no word from the government since--no attempt to collect.  Every year the United Nations votes 160 + to 2 against the Cuba embargo.  Its time for our country to tear down this embargo wall.





August 4, 2006

Dear Editors of the Wall Street Journal,

            In this time of transition in Cuba, its time to give the Cuban people a definite sign of our ability to welcome change.  We applaud the recommendation in your 8-2-06 editorial, “The Fabulous Castro Boys,” that we should repeal the Helms-Burton Act, and encourage commerce and constructive interaction between our two countries.  The outdated barriers of embargo and travel restriction have been harmful to Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and U.S. business and civic interests across the board.

            My wife and I made a trip to Cuba, and gave some small support to a group of Catholic nuns there in 2001.  Traveling independently, without Cuban guide or approvals, we met people of all political persuasions, living simple, poor but dignified lives.  For that we were sanctioned by our own government, and became one of the first cases to face a Treasury Department administrative law judge in December 2004.  The outcome is still in limbo, appealed within Treasury, no action taken, and no fine imposed.  We believe that the majority in our government, and country, are convinced our current policy is wrong and counterproductive.

Our country is in danger of becoming a gated community {see Luke 16:19-31-- the Rich Man and Lazarus}.  Instead, on every front, our people need to reach out to other cultures, friend and foe, to be peacemakers.  It’s a question of our salvation. As the rich people, shutting ourselves off from the mutually healing contact with the poor, we court the disaster of the gate, turned into the eternal abyss.  {see the John J. Pilch, Georgetown University,  exposition of the above passage, pp 142-44, in The Cultural Word of Jesus, Cycle C, The Liturgical Press, 1997--[very worthwhile books].}

As Fidel Castro’s ability to lead diminishes, and as Raul’s direction is in question, I have confidence the Cuban people will make positive adjustments, and I hope we ourselves have the courage to make the first moves towards reconciliation.  The Archdiocese of Miami {witness their program En Comunion} and the Vatican {remember Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1998} have stood ready for years to help heal old animosities while respecting Cuban sovereignty.  May Congress heed your call, and confirm legislation that will open doors too long closed.

Yours truly,

Michael McCarthy PA-C,

Blue Water Pax Christi

Port Huron, MI   48060

This is how it appeared edited in the August 8, 2006 WSJ, clipped of much of it spiritual commentary.

 

Our society continues to ignore the whole world--rich & poor--implications of the Gospel.  Good for most, not so good for some who'd attempt to drag their feet with their possessions into eternity.

 

 

Dives and Lazarus

"It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God's will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you - try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God's will yourself!"      - Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation, chapter 14, p. 107 (1949).

      Words that need to be heard, especially now, in the halls of Congress.

 

Illumination, and much support during our Cuba trial in D.C., provided by Kathy Brahney, and her husband and friends, and many others.