Desiring Machine

If you have any interest in understanding history of Neo Conservatism and Islamic Jihad you should check out this very excellent BBC produced documentary, The Power of Nightmares.

Very informative and a nice concise history for the those of us being born in the 70s and not necessarily aware of the groundwork for todays foreign policies.

A couple of take aways I get from this:

1.) How absolutely consistently wrong the NeoCons are in there assessment of foreign affairs. And in the face of lacking evidence they willfully fabricate it.

2.) Nixon was a liberal by today’s standards. Kissinger was a remarkable, albeit ruthless, realist. With a commitment to negotiation. Not unlike Clinton in many ways.

The real interesting political question in my mind is how things might have been different had there been no Watergate nor a Nixon resignation. What would have happend if we didn’t have a weak, inffectual leader in Gerald Ford who first let the Neo Cons in the door in the mid 1970’s.

At anyrate, this documentary is a must see if you want to understand the true threat that faces us in the present political climate as we remember those who tragically suffered on 9/11 and in the desert sands of Iraq for the last few years.

For me one of the strongest features of the Christian religious tradition is it persistent ex post facto sense of justice. It may be justice delayed but in God’s hands lies the arbitration of human affairs. There is a strong appeal in this especially to those that have not seen much justice in their life or the present. Sometimes one has nothing left but the hope that those who have wronged you will get their due in the end.

Johnny Cash’s last album before his death American V: A Hundred Highways has an excellent and forceful track that illustrates this principle called “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”. This song’s performance delivers in a spiritual mode that is at the heart of this notion of justice. There is a resignation of the present and the things that have happened in the past but also an insistance that the future is full of change. Sooner or later everything comes to light.

Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down

I know that this is not an unproblematic notion of justice but it is something that many find strength in especially during moments that are exceedingly dark. It is where optimism springs from. Even if you don’t believe in a God in the sky meting out divine justice. There is power in this faith in Justice. It can give you resolve not to cave into those that assault you and yours. The fight to move forward is supported by an unseen force that will bring things into the light and make them clear again. This can bring strength when you think you have nohing left to work with. The key here though is the fight to move forward. A simple resignation of everything and placing all the hope in an unseen force and doing nothing to remedy your circumstances creates a problem. This is the negativity in Christianity. If you give up everything and wait on your savior he may not come in the time frame that you desire. This, in turn, creates pain, frustration and a spirit of resentment. Or what Friedrich Nietzsche famously termed Ressentiment.

Now a political point. When I listen to song like this I can’t but think about our current president. Bush, God’s gonna cut you down. You can run on for a long time but the end game is not yours to make. You will be resigned to the trash bin of history as one of the worst American presidents. Your legacy will quickly be eclipsed and the destructive cabal of neocons that you surround yourself with will find their time coming to an end.

I have no worries that justice will be found. But those who find themselves with seething hatred of Bush should be careful. One doesn’t want to fall into the despair and the Ressentiment that Nietzsche warns us about. There is effort required, we must fight and work, and struggle. But justice is there to be claimed. People like Bush and his ilk who shroud themselves in secrecy, lies will be exposed. They may run on for a long time but sooner or later God will cut them down if history doesn’t do it first.