Myth, Morality, and Osama bin Ladenby Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy Previously by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy: The Attack on Human Dignity
The "killing" of Osama bin Laden is just the last chapter in a long running serial story entitled Osama bin Laden and 911. Like Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek story, once Osama bin Laden and 911 hit the TV screen a decade ago it generated episode after episode, sequel after sequel for ten years. But finally, like Captain Kirk – after at least nine lives and fifty ever more preposterous escapes – Osama had to be killed and sent to wherever it is that literary characters go after their usefulness expires. But just as Star Trek was morphed into mythic dimensions after the last scene played out, so now after the curtain has come down on the Osama bin Laden and 911 tale, it too is being moved along from momentary politically useful fiction (lies) to perpetually useful political myth with all the paraphernalia that accompanies such a transition in contemporary times. A big budget movie is said to be already in the works, tentative title, The Seals Seal the Deal. Clooney is suppose to have the lead with a direct descendant of Rin-Tin-Tin playing "War Dog," the heroic canine who was choppered in with the Seals to take down Osama. But a myth is not a myth if you know it is a myth. So if there is no factual evidence to support a particular myth as being rooted in reality, everything must be done to quash every syllable that might suggest that the myth is just a yarn made up by some human beings for some purpose. Hence since 911 every major media outlet in the US has not permitted any other narrative on 911 to be broadcast except the story of Osama bin Laden and 911, even though there is a Niagara of scientific evidence and documentary evidence that renders that story to be the reality equivalent of Superman II. And like all myths the closing scene has to be strictly in concert with the opening scene. So no storyline on the death of Osama bin Laden is permitted on the national media's broadcast systems, except that which is 100% in full cognitive and emotional accordance with the opening chapter and all the subsequent chapters of the official Osama bin Laden and 911 story. Scientific evidence to the contrary notwithstanding Osama bin Laden destroyed three buildings with two planes with freefall-footprint demolition precision. Case closed. Even the evidence from before and at and after the time of 911, that bin Laden was on life-supporting dialysis three times a week for kidney disease long before 911 and that he had been diagnoses with incurable Marfan Syndrome before 911 – both of which require exceptional degrees of medical expertise and technology to be of any use even for a shot term extension of a life – is bracketed out of perception and discussion. It can no more get a nanosecond on the six major media outlets that account for 85% of what Americans hear or read, than can those thousands of scientists and engineers who can demonstrate that by the laws of nature, to say nothing of straight forward human observation, the three World Trade Center mega-buildings could not have been destroyed as the government and media relentlessly claim in their Osama bin Laden and 911 narrative blitzkrieg of the American psyche. And, so we have 100% of the so-called major media news reporters, new commentators, news analysts playing the same role that so-called sports announcers, commentators and analysts play when, with great energy and the appearance of thoughtfulness, they announce, comment on and analyze a professional wrestling match as if it were a real adversarial fight – when in fact all professional wrestling matches on mass media in the US are pre-planned and choreographed theater with a storyline, orchestration and predetermined ending. The nonstop serious commentary and analysis is actually part of the created theatrical fantasy, for without it the spectacle of a 380 pound man calling himself "The Gorgeous One" and a 420 pound man calling himself "The Mad Dog Avenger" hitting each other continuously for a half hour without drawing a drop of blood would be "rolling in the aisles" ludicrous! The announcers, commentators and analysts discuss with gravitas, expertise and in exhausting detail all aspect and possible interpretations of the wrestling match and of the "fighters": their physiques, their lives, their techniques for winning, their won-lost wrestling histories. All that is, except one. These "epic battles" between giants that are being given such extensive, serious and detailed examination are as phony, bogus, make believe and pretend as "Albania as a nuclear threat to the US" was in the film Wag the Dog. So what are the human consequences of perpetrating a myth that is a lie in a society. First, it is dangerous to ignore a violence justifying, emotionally ridden myth. The myth once accepted cognitively and emotionally generates its own theology and/or philosophy of right and wrong. Ancient religious text – even if on normal reading they communicate the opposite of the myth – are twisted to fit into it. This religious acceptance bestows on the myth even further power to alter consciousness and motivate people to act in a particular direction. "Native Americans are savages," "blacks are subhuman," Manifest Destiny, Ersatz Israel, lebensraum are all myths without any basis in fact that have resulted in the self-righteous murdering and maiming of hundreds of millions of human beings. None of these preposterous myths arose accidentally out of nothingness. They were all humanly concocted by and planted in the consciousness and consciences of individuals and communities before they ever erupted into anticipated and unanticipated mass murder, albeit mass murder experienced as justified, as right, as doing the will of God. The myth of Osama bin Laden and 911 is now in full throttle mode. Soon we can expect a song entitled "The Tale of a War Dog" by Willie Nelson to top the music charts. The saga of Osama bin Laden and 911 is expanding and hourly being sown ever more deeply in the minds and souls of people, especially young people, via technology never before available to the economic, political and military elites for such mind manipulating projects. Here is today's example: Note: Kuma War is a free online war game that models its missions on real-world war events that are reported in the media. New missions have been released every month since 2004 and the kill Osama bin Laden mission will be the last episode in the 107 part series, according to the corporation that produced and freely distributed this long running, hands-on, interactive video "game" series. Kuma Games in announcing that episode #107 would be the last, said "it provides a neat end to the storyline." P.S. The ever mutating Christian Just War Theory is part of the problem in a world where contrived, emotionally charged, violent, self righteous myths are culturally and politically hardwired into consciousness and conscience. The moral chameleonism called CJWT has a universal historical record of fitting in perfectly with any of them – or not fitting in – depending which side of the human carnage operation one is on. There is absolutely no way out of this murderous moral sinkhole except the unequivocal, unambiguous and unmodified proclamation by the Christian Churches, Church leaders and Church communicants of the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels as the Nonviolent Messiah of Israel, the Nonviolent Lord, the Nonviolent God and the Nonviolent Savior of the world, along with the proclamation of the power and wisdom and truth of His Way of Nonviolent Love (Agape) of friends and enemies as God’s Way of being and God’s Way conquering evil. There is one Way and only one Way for all humanity to exit this viper's tangle. It is not the way of Bush, Obama, Cheney, Emanuel, Hillary, Condi, Rush, Chris, etc. It is the Way of Jesus. You can give your brief life to make it happen, but you cannot take an other's life to make it happen – there in lies the essence of both the problem and the solution. Believe it or not. The time allotted to you to choose is passing. Believe it or not. May 12, 2011
The Best of Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
|
Fr.
Emmanuel Charles McCarthy is a priest of the Eastern Rite (Byzantine-Melkite)
of the Catholic Church. Formerly a lawyer and a university educator,
he is the founder and the original director of The Program for the
Study and Practice of Nonviolent Conflict Resolution at the University
of Notre Dame. He is also co-founder, along with Dorothy Day and
others of Pax Christi-USA. He has conducted retreats and spoken
at conferences throughout the world on the issue of the relationship
of faith and violence and the nonviolence of the Jesus. He was the
keynote speaker at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee for
the 25th anniversary memorial of the assassination of Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr. there. He is author of several books, including
these: All Things Flee Thee because Thou Fleest Me: A Cry to
the Churches and their Leaders to Return to the Nonviolent Jesus
and His Nonviolent Way; Christian Just War Theory: The logic of
Deceit; August 9: The Stations of the Cross of Nonviolent Love.
He has also authored innumerable articles on the subject of violence,
religion and the nonviolent love of friends and enemies taught by
Jesus by word and deed. His audio/video series, BEHOLD THE LAMB,
is almost universally considered to be the most spiritually profound
presentation on the matter of Gospel Nonviolent Love available in
this format. BEHOLD THE LAMB is now available