POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN INTIFADA REPEATED FROM THE TELEGRAPH
The Archbishop has long been one of the West's most important moral critics, as one might expect from a genuine Christian leader.
Contrast his tough and honest views with the kind of diplomatic pap we typically get from, say, the Vatican.
Or compare his moral bravery with certain American Christian fundamentalists who sound as though their job was to serve as cheerleaders for the American military-industrial complex.
In books and stories about the past, we invariably praise the kind of character we find in the Archbishop.
But in real life, the establishment and substantial parts of the population have no use for them, because their tough views and moral authority call into question accepted clichés and create inconvenient truths.
Recall the powerful and famous scene in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov in which Jesus returns to earth to meet the Grand Inquisitor, and the two have a conversation.
Jesus himself recognizes none of his teachings in the words of the Grand Inquisitor, and the Grand Inquisitor grows irritated with someone he regards as a nuisance, finally sending Jesus off to be heard from no more.
That is, sadly, the immortal truth of how power and establishment welcome honesty, decency, and truth: they don't, ever.
America has descended to the ghastly moral level of Israel in all of its reactions to 9/11: illegal arrests, kidnapping, torture, assassinations, ignoring international laws and treaties, imposing harsh new laws completely out of the spirit of its Constitution, maintaining an international torture gulag, and making deals with monsters like General Dostum.
When you throw away everything of genuine human value in a place like America, all you are left with is a great imperial power ready to crush anyone with whom it disagrees.
http://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/obama-bin-ladens-assassination-nothing-to-celebrate-and-no-justice-at-all-considering-the-facts-this-is-just-one-more-proof-of-might-makes-right/
http://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/more-on-bin-ladens-assassination-the-nonsence-of-al-qaeda-web-sites-making-announcements-the-nonsense-of-al-qaeda-background-on-bin-laden/
