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Thomas cited what a famous fourth-century theologian said on the subject: "He or she who is not angry, when there is just cause for anger, sins. Why? Because anger respicit bonum justitiae, anger looks to the good of Justice, and if you can live among injustice without anger you are unjust."
Aquinas added his own corollary; he railed against what he called "unreasoned patience," which, he said, "sows the seeds of vice, nourishes negligence, and persuades not only evil people but good people to do evil."
As we look at the effects of the military industrial complex, who will deny that there is just cause for anger -- just the right amount of anger -- the virtue of anger? And the fact that this is part of what motivates us -- well that's as it should be.
Frankly, I have not thought much about us activists being virtuous -- but maybe we are, at least in our willingness to channel our anger into challenging and changing the many injustices here and around the world. There should be no room these days for "unreasoned patience."
Prophets/Activists & Criminals
The Hebrew Scriptures feature the witness of prophets channeling the virtue of anger into speaking truth to power. Many of them were eccentric -- from the Greek ek kentros, off center, out of the mainstream -- and they were generally not welcome in their hometowns. Is this beginning to sound a little like you, maybe?
Happily, we don't have to go back to the eighth-century BCE prophets for examples. We are surrounded by prophets, although the ones I have in mind would be the last to claim that title.
Earlier today I did a little review of the prophets I've run into over the last decade; curiously, all of the ones who came to mind turn out to be women.
Ann Wright, who keynoted so well for us on Friday evening, was the first to come to mind. One of the three U.S. diplomats who quit when the U.S. attacked Iraq; mayor of Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas; inspirer and fund-raiser for the U.S. Boat to Gaza, with the creative suggestion we name it --I think after some sort of book -- "The Audacity of Hope."
I've had the pleasure of watching Ann up close, and have gotten into the same kind of activist trouble she has.
I remember as one of her finest hours, the one during which she sat quietly as the Senate Judiciary Committee deliberated pompously over whether to approve the appointment of Rumsfeld's Pentagon lawyer William J. Haynes, II -- an Eagle Scout from Waco, alumnus of Harvard Law, and more recently a "justifier" of torture -- to be a federal judge. (The pattern had already been set when Jay Bybee of the Justice Department, who signed off on John Yoo's many mafia-style memoranda approving torture, was given a life-time appointment as a federal judge.)
Ann can be quiet in such circumstances for, well, not very long. She stood up and loudly warned those august senators that they were about to give a judgeship to a felon. The committee adjourned that day before it was supposed to, and I think it's pretty clear that the ruckus Ann made was instrumental in defeating Haynes' appointment.
The findings of a subsequent Senate Armed Services Committee report on torture provide chapter and verse about why Haynes and his boss Rumsfeld should be behind bars.
Mentioning John Yoo evokes the example of West Coast prophet Susan Harman, who has made it her business to cling to Yoo like chewing gum. Seeing Susan's familiar face, Yoo now says, "Hello there." Susan responds, "Torture there."
Yoo has enough friends in high places that there are many to choose from, were we as brave and conscientious as Susan in bird-dogging. Perhaps we could each choose one.
Speaking of bird-dogging, how could I not mention the gutsy women who lead World Can't Wait and its watchdog group "War Criminal Watch." It was they who got me a very-difficult-to-acquire ticket to Donald Rumsfeld's speech in Atlanta five years ago; and yet another to be with him more recently at a forum run by the Jewish Policy Center at the 92nd Street Y just 10 days ago in New York City.
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