Bush expects to raise $500 million for the library making it the costliest Presidential Library to date. The half-a-billion dollars is twice the total amount Bush spent on his entire 2004 Presidential campaign! Just think if public libraries had that kind of kind of support while he was in office.
Among the contributors to the Presidential Library are:
A sheik from the United Arab Emirates, who contributed at least $1 million.
The state of Kuwait.
The Bandar bin Sultan family.
The Sultanate of Oman.
King Hassan II of Morocco.
The amir of Qatar.
The former Korean prime minister.
China also gave tens of thousands of dollars to the library. In addition, funds were received from the late Kenneth Lay, the former head of Enron, and Dick Cheney, the current Vice President.
I received a press release the other day from Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, an outspoken critic of Bush's plan to house the library at SMU. Weaver points out that in a recent vote among members of the United Methodist Church members voted 844-20 on a petition calling for the rejection of the Bush project! How's that for an approval rating.
Apparently, this opposition is not enough. Bishop Scott J. Jones of Kansas, a staunch supporter of the library, called the petition merely procedural and that the decision rests in hands of the church's South Central Jurisdiction (SCJ).
Weaver goes on to say:
I urge Bishop Jones to reconsider and support the democratic and transparent processes of our church. I fear our communion will suffer a lingering and unnecessary wound of distrust, hurt, and anger if there is not fairness on this issue. Thousands of United Methodists...believe that honoring and “celebrating” a glaringly unrepentant UMC member, President George W. Bush, with a partisan think tank, will damage our credibility as followers of Jesus Christ and bring lasting shame upon the our church and a fine university
Article at Media Transparency Dubya's Tower of Babel
Protest SMU.org
Weaver's June 2007 piece, Southern Halliburton University
Previous Book Patrol post : And the Envelope Please: Designs for the George W. Bush Presidential Library
1 comment:
SMU, Torture and the Presidental Partisan Institute
On April 11, President Bush confessed to the media that he has been deeply involved from the beginning in the details of the use of torture that he authorized. ABC News reported: “President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency.” According to White House sources, the discussions about torture techniques were so detailed that some of the “interrogation sessions were almost choreographed” (1-2).
A month earlier, on March 8, Bush vetoed legislation banning waterboarding and other methods of torture used by government employees. The legislation would have limited CIA agents to 19 less-aggressive tactics outlined in the U.S. Army field manual. The president stated that the government “needs to use tougher methods than the U.S. military to wrest information from terrorism suspects” (3). It has been highly documented that at least 19 prisoners have been tortured to death by the U.S. military (4).
Waterboarding has a long and sickening history. It was used as a means of torture and coerced baptism during the Protestant Reformation and Spanish Inquisition to convert Jews, Mennonites, witches, and other suspected heretics. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back with the head inclined downward and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. As the victim gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive.
Torture is not a Methodist value. In the supposedly “less enlightened” 18th century, John Wesley explicitly preached against the torture of prisoners of war:
War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation: Therefore it gives us no right over prisoners, but to hinder their hurting us by confining them. Much less can it give a right to torture, or kill, or even to enslave an enemy when the war is over (5).
Bush, who claims to be a “proud Methodist,” shows no sign of contrition or regret or repentance for his unchristian behavior. To the contrary, he continues to try to justify himself and protect those in our government who have used and continue to use torture. Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany rightly called the cowardliness of Christians to not make evil-doers accountable for their wicked deeds “cheap grace.” Building a monument to Bush at SMU to “celebrate this great president, celebrate his accomplishments” (6) will seriously damage the good name of a fine university and the UMC.
(1) http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id=4635175&page=1
(2) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041908Y.shtml
(3) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030800304.html
(4) Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine and the War on Terror by Steven H. Miles
(5) http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/slavery
(6) Statement by Don Evans, the Chair and a chief fundraiser for the George W. Bush foundation on Feb. 22, 2008, New York Times
Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D., is a United Methodist minister and research psychologist living in New York City. He is a graduate of The Perkins School of Theology, SMU. He has co-authored 14 books including: Counseling Survivors of Traumatic Events (Abingdon, 2003) and Reflections on Grief and the Spiritual Journey (Abingdon, 2005).
Post a Comment