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Don’t Veto Peace

Dear President Bush,

The Senate passed a very important bill today, signifying increased support for troops, increased healthcare benefits for injured soldiers, and increased hope that this quagmire in Iraq may soon draw to a close.

President Bush, your efforts in Iraq were perhaps born out of an ideal to make the world a better and safer place. In your vision, Iraq would become a great democracy that could spread peace and change a complex area of the world like the Middle East. Unfortunately, your ideas, like many others, met with reality.

The Middle East is a complex place, not because of its lack of democracy, but because of century old political and cultural divisions that date back far before America even had come to be. Peace will come to the Middle East, but only in due time, as good people within the region work carefully for that cause. Far too many times in the past, external powers have attempted to meld and shape that land into something it is not. Your military intervention has only led to mounting US casualties, ally casualties, and innocent civilian deaths.

While we have been stuck in Iraq, terrorists have launched plots and attacks across the world - in London, Spain, Greece, Indonesia, and elsewhere. The Taliban has resurged in Afghanistan. North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon. Increased extremism in places like southern Thailand is also growing.

Worse, where is the focus needed on other pressing issues? Efforts to rebuild in areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are marred by inadequate government support and lack of a cohesive effort to insure race and economics are not used to keep good, hard-working people out of their homes. Throughout our country, reforms are desired to insure security for our people and the needs of the vulnerable. We need to restore power to the people, give citizens more ability to change and influence their government. We need transparency and higher ethics on Capitol Hill, starting at the White House.

But above all, we need to leave Iraq because Christ compels us. During this season of Lent, I hope you have had time to consider how Christ was willing to lay down his life for all of the world. This selfless act was not one of violence - it was one that broke the cycles of violence in the world. Christ gave himself willingly to the powers that use guns, missiles, and abuse as a means to achieve their ends, and in the end, on a beautiful Sunday morn, Christ proved that death has no final word. The resurrection, in a same way, can lead us to new thinking and solutions to our world's problems by trusting that even the impossible is possible through God.

We must decide to embrace peace in our lives and in our policy and seek new ways to give voice to those who would help Iraq find a better tomorrow.

Please sign the bill, President Bush.

Nathan J. Hill
www.disciplesx.com
nathanjhill@gmail.com
registered voter in Oklahoma

Sunday morning at Advocacy Days.

I'm heading off to Advocacy Days in a few minutes. The one hour time change is ruffling my feathers - I would like to sleep a bit more. I know I'm missing the morning worship and speaker now, but such is life...

One of the workshops I attended yesterday delivered information about the Not For Sale Campaign, a new effort to advocate against modern slavery in our world. Believe it or not, slavery has not disappeared - it has taken new faces. Slaves today are promised economic benefits but then trapped with low wages and threats of authority. For example, young, poor people from India, Thailand, and other countries are offered an opportunity to move to America to find a job, but the person who creates a fake VISA for them prevents them from having any freedom by threatening to turn them into authorities and giving them terribly low wages ($2-3 an hour). In some instances, these folks may be the waiters or waitresses you see at your local restaurants.

Of course, slavery also includes the sex trade. And don't think America also doesn't have its place in that industry as well, though you don't hear about it on the nightly news.

All in all, it's a $32 billion a year industry, and most world leaders don't know what to do. Most efforts must begin with laws and regulations passed locally to dry up the market for such, but there also needs to be international efforts, education strategies, and economic aid to countries especially affected. We need to give individuals an opportunity to succeed where they are in some fashion. Sadly, children are also affected - in some cases, families sell one of their children into the trade to pay debt or children are snatched up. We have to make this kind of evil market unprofitable.

You can find out more about the campaign here - http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/.

I'm going to look into it and see if the North Korean Freedom Coalition cannot partner with it in some fashion, since North Korea has also been known to participate in these kinds of criminal activities.

I'll have audio files and pictures to post up later.

Children’s Healthcare

What's the theme of Ecumenical Advocacy Days this year?

Children. As a community of Christians from many places and many situations and many viewpoints, we are taking time to look at where the children are in our world as a standard to hold our way of life by. Children are some of the most vulnerable members of our society. If our faith is about a life-giving, nurturing God who gathers us in like her children, then we must respond in a like manner and care for those who are our future and who are hurt most by the evils of our world.

I am part of the Domestic track at Advocacy Days. This morning, a group of over 100 hundred Christians and activists gathered to hear words and information on the effort to create free healthcare for all children in the US. It is estimated that over 9 million children in America do not have health insurance. There are programs out there - SCHIP and Medicaid - but there can be barriers for children to receive them. In addition, SCHIP comes up for renewal this year, and activists are working to expand the program and improve it so more children and families can be healthy.

The Children's Defense Fund presented an intriguing plan that would fund and cover all children without private healthcare. The plan includes creative ways to automatically enroll children in a variety of situations, trying to move away from the need to submit pages and pages of paperwork, which many families do not have time to submit. This will be one of the focuses of the weekend - to call Congress to account on this issue. It is not simply a reality of our world - it is a moral failing that we do not have a system in place that can provide children with the care they need.

I'll be blogging more about this issue as the weekend goes on. Tonight, I'll share a little bit about the Not For Sale Campaign and have some audio from some of the awesome Disciple participants. I've already seen quite a few Disciples here - Jessica Vasquez, Amy Gopp, Sara Critchfield, Lee Hull-Moses, Ken Brooker Langston, Kaye Edwards, Emily Bowen, and more. I'll share more as I get a chance.