Compiled by Dick Bennett https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/11/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-205-november.html
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 might Mr. Barglow apply empathy to stop the wars in Ukraine and Palestine? -Dick]
END OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #205, NOVEMBER 27, 2024.