BUSH: Lies, Killing, Torture and Christianity

Do you ever feel duped by the media?  Even "the most trusted name in news" seems to manipulate our attention and thinking with obvious daily "talking points" to deflect and distract our attention to what is truly going on. A sound byte here. A sound-byte there, each designed to dole just enough, but not the whole truth. Not the big picture. Not the overview of our country and world in crisis. Most of us  probably don't even want the whole truth---we just want to know its okay and that we can go on with our comforts and busy lives.

Unfortunately, for this great country, we all operate much like a highly dysfunctional family, don't you think? Much like what happens when a family has a drunk or abusive dad. When the sun comes up and everyone is still breathing, the whole family never mentions the horror of the previous day. ...and dad himself --- climbs on his self-righteous horse, off to work as if nothing happened. Things never get fixed. They are never fully uncovered. Surely never discussed openly. They just get more complicated with lies, mistrust, exploitation, battered lives and implications that will stretch across the years and generations to come.

This has been particularly true in the past few weeks, days and hours. Horrific killing everywhere, but the media brazenly insults us with the plans for a "great BUSH speech designed to improve his polls" or to help the Republicans maintain their stronghold on our government in 2006 elections. Meanwhile, 284 "coalition military lives" have been lost since October 1---- 38 in the first 13 days of December ---  and we're all putting up our holiday decorations. All but 5 are US sons and daughters. Notice they weren't the sons and daughters of any of the officials running the war.

In Bush's speech today, he states, "...the terrorists have made it clear that

Iraq

is the central front in their war against humanity." Who are the terrorists? Whose war against all that is human? How many lives do you have to be responsible for killing to qualify as a terrorist? 

Today, years into his illegal war, Bush casually spoke about 30,000 civilians being killed. Obviously, parroting a staffers Google search. No remorse. No dignity. Just empty rhetoric. He was applauded for his "candor" on CNN. Imagine. Other sources estimate well over 100,000 civilians lives have been lost and maimed, including the innocents --- women and children in Bush's war.

...and then there is the death penalty looming over our consciousness last night here in

California

. Certainly, Bush doesn't bear the responsibility for this death, but he did his share in

Texas

. I don't know too much about the Tookie Williams case, but I know killing him or torturing him as they did for 35 minutes on public display last night does not fall under the teachings of Christ that Bush so readily falls back on. It seems Bush forgot to read that "eye for an eye" went out when Jesus came bringing a new covenant and asked that we do just two things: Love God and love our neighbor.

How does killing and torture align with Christian values?
How does is align with the values of any wisdom tradition? 

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." ---- Gandhi

May we work to change our collective consciousness to bring a renewed sense of humanity to our governments and to our own lives for the good of all people.

Debbe Kennedy

Visit the Global Dialogue Center.