OMNI WAR WATCH
WEDNESDAYS, #205, NOVEMBER 27, 2024. Compiled by Dick Bennett
Thomas Ricento. Can the US Survive White Christian
Nationalism?
Robert F. Keeler. Can
the US Survive Militarism?
Raymond Barglow. Can the US Survive Authoritarianism?
US White Christian Nationalism
Thomas Ricento. “Can
America Survive as a Secular Democracy? Free Inquiry (Dec. 2024 – Jan.
2025).
The question can be understood only via
a truthful history of the US that recognizes the secondary role of immigrants
seeking religious freedom and the primacy of colonialism and imperialism. Ricento recommends Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s excellent
book: Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and
a History of Erasure and Exclusion (2021).
The US has never been a secular democracy. The founding fathers tried to create an (extremely
qualified) republic for white males, “an experiment that is based on secular
principles of equal justice under law, and the strict separation of church and
state.” But “from the mid-fifteenth
century to the mid-twentieth,” from Jamestown (1607) and the Mayflower (1620), the
Christian Doctrine of Discovery enabled the westward extermination of the
Indigenous people. Almost simultaneously
white males created the extraordinarily profitable slavery system. Acceptance of genocide and slavery—the two
enormously anti-democratic movements in which the US remains enmeshed—dominated,
ending only by the near-eradication of the Indigenous, and by the Civil War,
which produced not emancipation but “Reconstruction.”
Christian doctrine has “always been a core—even central—element of
American national identity and a powerful force in American political culture.” Today we are experiencing the dangerous fusion
of anti-democratic right-wing values in evangelical Christians and the Republican
Party. --Dick
Book Club: Robert
F. Keeler, Sacred Soldier: The Dangers of Worshiping Warriors. In January 2025, World BEYOND War will be holding a virtual
weekly discussion each of four weeks of Sacred Soldier. Contact
david@worldbeyondwar.org Zoom
(details to be shared upon registration).
This is a small group series with limited space of up to 18 people. We
look forward to reading and discussing this important book with you!
Resisting Authoritarianism by
Empathy and Altruism
Raymond Barglow. “Heartfelt Reasons: Empathy as a Method of Rational
Inquiry.” Free Inquiry (Dec. 2024
– Jan. 2025).
“In a world riven by cultural and
ideological conflict, empathy has an indispensable role to play, helping us to
understand human experience and build bridges across wide differences.” The author glimpses historical instances of
empathy leading to his appraisal of today as being “in short supply” of empathy,
yet still capable of widening “the circle of altruism.”
[How much more valuable would have been an essay by Mr. Barglow on widening
empathy to stop the wars in Ukraine and Palestine. -Dick]
END OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #205,
NOVEMBER 27, 2024.
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