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Do We Notice It?

A Sermon on the Possibility of Peace

I want to begin with a story by UU minister, Meg Riley. I remember the first time I read Meg's story. After finishing it, I had to put it down for a minute. It was one of those moments - part epiphany, part punch in the gut.

It's the story of Meg going to a high school drama presentation, a series of presentations really. The drama teacher gave boxes of props to two teams of students and told them to use those boxes to create six skits each - all of them to be performed for an audience of parents who would pick the winning skit. The boxes were exactly the same, with one exception: one team's box included a gun. In the end, the team with the "gun-less" box of props produced skits on a wide variety of themes. So did the team with the gun. Both groups' skits displayed impressive creativity, daring and intelligence.

But there was one striking difference. Despite the variety of themes, the plays created by the "gun-enhanced" team all ended with someone getting shot!

The box always wins. This was Meg's conclusion. Forget imagination, creativity, work, the power of persuasion. As long as the gun stays in the box, she said, the box always wins.

I want to pair this story today with another set of words. They are by author and political activist, Eduardo Galeano. He's reflecting on Barack Obama's first year in the presidency, especially as it relates to foreign affairs.

"I don't know. Perhaps Barack Obama is a prisoner. The most powerful prisoner in the world. And perhaps he cannot notice it."

That quote also made me sit down for a minute; it too felt like a punch in the gut.

And you can see by my sermon title where these two sets of words have taken me: not just to wondering if the gun-filled box has made a prisoner of Barack Obama, but of all of us as well.

Thus our really important question today: Do we notice it?

Do we notice how the gun-filled box is controlling every single one of our skits? Do we notice that as we spend lots of energy debating and imagining alternative skits to war, the gun-filled box ends up doing largely what it wants? Do we notice that as long as the box is filled with guns, the box wins?

And, of course, the answer is that we don't. Not really. Not as a group. Certainly not as a country.

Friends, we're talking this month about possibilities and today we're talking about the possibility of peace and true security. President Obama obviously has been thinking and talking a lot about this recently as well. Just this week, many of my anti-war friends were heartened, if not delighted, to hear the president speak out so clearly in his State of the Union Address on the issue of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan coming home. No ambivalence there. No, during the 8 minutes he devoted to foreign affairs, our new leader looked us right in the eye and said clearly, "In Afghanistan, we're increasing our troops and training Afghan security forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home." He emphasized the same about Iraq: "Make no mistake: This war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home." Notice that word "all."

So he couldn't be clearer. It would seem a triumph of vision and determination over the gun-filled box.

That is if it weren't for the remaining hour of his speech in which he also declared loud and clear that the giant gun-filled box will continue to grow. And not only grow, but grow at the expense of scientific and medical research, new transportation and repair of social infrastructure, national parks, housing, education and non-security international aid.

I'm speaking of course of the President's three-year spending freeze plan set to start in about one year. Out of supposed "dire concern" for our projected 9 trillion dollar deficit in the year 2020, our president is boldly proposing a minor 250 billion dollar savings on the back of science, roads, teachers, books, college support and humanitarian aid.

What will not be touched by the freeze, what will not be asked to help reduce the deficit, is the 700 billion dollar Defense Department - our box of guns, bombs and soldiers that sits right alongside those other discretionary items. No, that already-giant box will actually increase. Once again, the box wins and determines the skit!

And here's the important - and even sickening - question to ask: Did it win because it is full of less waste? Did new and apparently extravagant elementary school computers, text books, music programs and extra special education teachers get put on the cutting block because they are more wasteful than a military budget that includes:

  • support for billion dollar futuristic weaponized cyborg bugs,
  • experimental floating military platforms that can launch attacks from the sky,
  • dozens of 300 billion dollar fighter jets that regularly run over budget, have a track record of shoddy workmanship and aren't even wanted by the air force,
  • and thousands of dollars in booze and gourmet food that official military escorts get to use for US politicians taking war observation trips?

No, the school kids didn't lose because their props are more wasteful. They lost because our President and our government have agreed to play by the rule that "No guns can be removed from the box."

And let's be clear, it's not just President Obama and our legislators that support the rule of "Don't touch the guns." It's us too. One might even say that we are the enforcers of it. You see, a central reason guns stay in the box and school books get thrown out is that the factories that make all those guns and wasteful weapons are scattered all over the country. It's the box's most brilliant move! We're all invested. We're all dependant. If all the guns and weapons were made in one state, it'd be easier for the other representatives to join together and place the job losses on that one poor state and its representatives. But with everyone invested in a small piece of the box, each party is going to protect its own piece and point the finger at someone else's waste - resulting in stalemate and the box living on, crowding out everything else.

And not just crowding out everything else, but taking over everything else. As someone who likes to think of himself as an active and aware citizen of this country, I'm embarrassed to say it, but only this week have I learned that the Pentagon - the Defense Department - is essentially stealing control of oversees humanitarian aid and disaster relief programs from the State Department. By law - a law called the Foreign Assistance Act - it is the non-military State Department that is in charge of overseeing and implementing aid and development programs to other countries. But because the Defense Department's budget now so dwarfs the State Department's budget by 13-fold and since our military structures are so thoroughly entrenched in these regions, it has just "made logical and practical sense" for the Pentagon to underwrite and administer most of these programs. This doesn't just mean that soldiers rather than plain-clothed, unarmed aid workers deliver the services. No, it also means that these aid programs are routinely designed to support the military's tactical aims! Now, of course, all this is suppose to be conducted with so-called State Department approval and legislative oversight, but since these efforts are started and carried out within a spread-out and complicated military structure that oversight and coordination is spotty at best.

I hope it's obvious how this switch - this military take-over of humanitarian aid - dramatically changes the nature of the "humanitarian skit." With a gun and a military aim woven into humanitarian efforts, I hope it's clear how easily that skit can end in the use of a gun - in someone getting shot or someone having little motivation not to shoot us, much more than it ending with a hospital being built and people feeling genuinely helped.

And the bigger point here, once again, is not simply that our humanitarian aid is being militarized, but that this militarization is a result of having our box of available resources so stuffed to the brim with guns! When we give 750 billion dollars to the war department - to a system and personnel trained and committed to military aims - and then only give 50 billion to a State Department trained in diplomacy and civil reconstruction, then it shouldn't surprise any of us if the story line includes more explosions going off than relationships getting built.

So friends, do you see the picture that is emerging? Well, not emerging, really, but already here - the picture that is sitting right in front of us, right on top of us really, but so rarely noticed.

What I'm saying today - with a deep heart-sickness - is that I think this little-known writer and activist, Eduardo Galeano, is on to something terribly true. Just like those science-fiction movies in which we human beings build robots only to see them take over, we Americans have created and allowed a beast to grow that now has a life of its own and is dictating the human program much more than we are dictating or programming it.

We do seem indeed to be the most powerful prisoners in the world.

But hold on just one minute, Scott, say my Obama-faithful friends. Aren't you overstating it a bit? Aren't you selling imagination, inspiration and articulation just a bit short? After all, as the Nobel Prize committee recognized by giving him the Peace Prize, there is real power and real potential in Obama's vision, proposals and words. By helping us imagine a different way, he's changing the entire story, the entire skit.

It matters, my friends will say, that Obama has declared we're getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. It matters that he's declared we are committed to joining with the world not taking it over. It matters that he's committed to rebuilding and standing beside Iraq & Afghanistan, not just winning victory over it.

And to this, I would say: I'm sorry friends, but I'm no longer sure about any of it. I'm no longer sure that it does really matter - or to be more exact, that it matters enough. And we need to be wide-eyed about this.

I want you all to argue with me. If I'm wrong, I want you, as my friends, to set me right. But, with so many guns in the box - with the size of the military box so big - I think we need to understand that there are great limits to what Obama's imagination and intentions can do.

For instance, on the issue of getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is indeed clear that deadlines for withdrawal have been set, but what's not clear is whether the generals are really following this script. In a press conference just a couple of weeks ago, General Petraeus couldn't even remember what Obama's withdrawal date actually was. It's July 2011. But Petraeus responded to reporters saying that he thought it was August and then quickly stressed with a chuckle, "Well, I've never been a wild fan of timelines."

The reporter pushed on, asking Petraeus: In light of the fact that withdrawal plans are complex and take lots of lead time, what kind of withdraw plans were currently under way? Petraeus responded by making another joke, after which he basically admitted that no plans were underway - no strategic plans, no advanced withdrawal staff-development or recruitment plans, no advanced budget planning, nothing! He then minimized this by saying that all their efforts were devoted to getting the troops on the ground and fully engaged in the work of counterinsurgency, which he and General McChrystal have over and over again said will take years. If you add to this the fact that 200 million dollar military bases are being built, 3-5 year helicopter and translator contracts are being handed out and special troops are being organized with the goal of "going native" and living with Afghan tribes for 3-5 years, then you get a clear picture that the military is confidently working according to its own timetable and goals, not Obama's! But what about Obama's rhetoric and vision of us joining with the world, rather than taking it over? On the face of it, this is truly inspiring. But frankly friends it's hard to take it seriously when there are no plans - no plans whatsoever - for significantly reducing our 700 military bases around the world in well over 150 countries. And no sign in sight of us being willing to even admit the ludicrousness of having a military budget that is 6 times as large as our next largest "partner" and virtually equal to all the other countries in the world! This is not a structure that gives even a small hope for the experience of "joining with others." When your gun and gang dwarfs everyone else's, you can call it "joining with others" all you want, but it's really a matter of them having to decide to join you, knowing all the while that you carry the trump card, the final say.

And finally on the issue of being committed to rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan: I read a story this week about how there are 750,000 widows in Iraq now because of the war. All the American and Iraqi governments have been able to muster to help them is a trailer park with 150 trailers that houses a mere 750 widows, with promised on-going, monthly, family-support stipends having dried up about a year ago.

Friends, I'm sure that other examples can be found, but for me this is enough to prove that Obama's vision is simply not enough. We can lay out the vision of "rebuilding what we broke" all we want, but when the only money in the prop box is for guns and withdrawal, then you tell me exactly how that rebuilding will happen for real.

And let me stress that in saying all this, I'm not trying to question the importance of Obama's words and intentions; I'm just questioning the power of them. I'm also not interested getting you to see our president as a hypocrite; Friends, I'm simply trying to look at it all this as honestly as I can, and when I do that, what I see, pretty clearly, is a president imprisoned.

But where does that and everything else I've said today leave us?

The message that we and our president are imprisoned by a massive military machine that dominates our decisions and constrains our options is not exactly hopeful. So here's where I'd take us back to the words of Eduardo Galeano and have us look at them closely. Because he doesn't just say that we're imprisoned, he also says "we don't notice it."

And there's the rub: because now - if I've done even a reasonable job this morning - we do notice it.

And therein is our hope! Because while a president may not be able to break out of this prison we certainly can. Indeed that's the only way this has ever been done. In this regard, we are lucky this week - tragically lucky. As Kaaren acknowledged in her meditation, the great American patriot and historian Howard Zinn died this week and so his words have been reanimated all around our country - including those words Kaaren shared.

Another thing that Zinn said was this: "It matters a lot less who is sitting in the white house, than who is doing sit-ins at the white house!"

It's a great quote. But so that we don't mistakenly hear it as simply a rabble-rouser's call for protest, we need to remember that Zinn said this less as an activist and more as a historian. He was reminding all of us that fundamental change only ever comes from below. As he once said in an interview, "A close reading of history tells us that we've never had great presidents. We've only ever made great presidents. Lincoln would never have taken on slavery if it weren't for the abolition movement. FDR wouldn't have championed the great society without the labor movement. Kennedy would never have sided with African Americans without the civil rights movement."

So with that, here's what I'm thinking: while we don't know for sure what Zinn would have said about Obama's State of the Union speech and his plan to protect the military budget at the expense of science research, roads & teachers, I'm pretty certain we can make a darn good guess. And I think Zinn would join with Meg Riley and say, we've got to be clear about the real challenge.

And that real challenge is, ultimately, not a lack of good ideas and alternatives to the military machine, nor leaders unwilling to go far enough or stand firm enough.

No, it's a grotesquely-sized military and military budget that leaves NO room for anything else!

And so, Zinn would say, we need to change that. Moreover, he would say only we can change that.

So get to it, he would say. And be smart about it. See this recent indecent spending freeze as your opening. Treat it for what it is and help the entire country see it for what it is: The Final Straw! - the clear window into how obscene and insane we've let our worship of the military machine become. For when a country treats schools as expendable and oversees military bases as untouchable, we've clearly sold our soul. Make that your mantra, he would say. Even make that your mission. Don't vote for anyone who sees it differently - ever again. Don't pay your taxes if the situation doesn't change. Fight for this. Sacrifice for this. The ways to do that are endless!

And mostly, treat this as the day you finally woke up, that you finally noticed.

And don't - for the sake of your children and for the sake of this world - don't ever go back to sleep, Don't ever willingly step back into that jail, become that prisoner. Don't ever let that box win without a fight!

May this, together, be what each of us say-and do.

Amen

Scott Tayler, Parish Co-Minister
January 31, 2010

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