Appreciating John Doane’s response (appearing as a comment under our first post)

Hi John,

We appreciate the moral and religious perspective that you bring to the discussion. Certainly we need to consider the morality of what our country is doing in the world as we try to formulate some approaches to modifying aspects of our behavior. We remember a young couple, adherents of the Russian Orthodox Church, telling us that their church taught that all human organizations become corrupt (we assume that is self-referencing), that there needed to be some group of people adhering to the ideals of religion throughout history to keep those ideals alive (for us that would extend beyond Christianity to other religions as well). We believe that that resonates with your experience as you have expressed it.

In analyzing the problem and formulating solutions we may well have to consider the sensibilities that allow us to justify the things our country does to other peoples in the world, inquire as to our mentalities as we allow corporations to destroy lives and the environment for the sake of us shareholders. (We will take another look at the work of Hanna Arendt.)

When you say, “I don't doubt that the United States has participated in all kinds of evil abroad. But we haven't like so many other countries established our own autocratic rule; the aftermath of World War II was a chance we had to do that and we did better.”, we agree that we did some good things, like supporting other countries with the Marshall Plan (even if for our own benefit), but although we did not establish “our own autocratic rule” in the same way as say the USSR we did establish a kind of autocratic rule or empire that now makes use of military bases and establishments in most of the countries of our world. And then there is the whole question of how we used the CIA, our secret army – secret to Americans but not to the people they effect -- to overthrow democratically elected governments (e.g., Iran, Chile, etc.), to carry out reigns of assasination (in Vietnam), to install and support dictators (the Shah, Pinochet, Saddam, etc.), to support Bin Laden and Al-Quaeda, and the Taliban, even Pol Pot, at various times. Yes others do similar things, but does that justify what we do, what our government does in our name? Does what we do actually contribute to our well-being and security or does it undermine it? Is it either humane or intelligent?

The question remains as to how to analyse the structure of the system and how to formulate approaches to modifying it. We know that we, personally, cannot do this alone but perhaps together all of us members of the Chorus with others can make a positive, pragmatic contribution.