407. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 25 (Davidson (a), pt. 1)

I had my epidural and already the pain is better close to the site, so I'm looking forward to it hopefully also improving the functionality in my legs and feet in the days and weeks to come. (Yay!)

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This next article is:

Davidson, Donald L. (1990, Spring). Modern warfare and Christian conscience. Military Chaplains' Review, 35-42. [no volume provided]

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This article's different sections are given titles that are sections and it might be helpful to know up front what those question-titles are:

1. Can a Christian "Bless" a War[?]

2. War is Wrong, but, [sic] is it ever the "Right" Thing for a Christian to do?

3. If War is Sometimes, Regretfully, Justified, Can it - Should it - Also be Limited?

4. What Would Jesus Say?

Before I go any farther I should let it be known that the bumper sticker on my car reads "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" so that should tell you where I stand on these kinds of issues.  Don't expect an unbiased commentary.  And I should say that a good part of the blame for that can go to my friend in Minneapolis with whom I stayed while I was collecting all these research articles.  I attended a certain book discussion group that got me thinking more on these kind of things and I was already  upset that my life was so affected by my dad.  So in addition to making reams (!) of copies from my research, I also bought a suitcase full of books mostly on peace subjects and I have indeed read through every single one of them and I have one of them here next to me to use.  So let's begin.

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The author has the good sense to understand that the church can not bless war and his reasoning is good enough, so I have nothing particularly to add to it, so I'm skipping the first section.

This text falls at the end of the second section of the article:

"What is it right to go to war? According to the Just War Tradition, mentioned in Walzer, it is right when the cause is defense and the goal is restoring a just peace; when war is conducted as a last resort and led by authorities who represent the victimized people; and when the war will not destroy more values than it preserves (proportion).

All of this may sound rather convoluted, so let me abbreviate: war is terrible destruction and an evil we should avoid, except when it is absolutely necessary to protect the lives and rights of people for whom we are responsible." (p. 39)

Sometimes when you are teaching you need to simplify things to help students understand things but sometimes you simplify things so much that you end out actually with something totally different than the thing you were trying to simplify.  Going to war only "when it is absolutely necessary to protect they lives and rights of people for whom" a group is responsible is so far removed from just war teaching as to be something totally different.

In fact the initial definition the author gives also omits some very important issues that I'd like to correct here, using my book from Minneapolis, via Russia and back to the USA:

Kennedy, Paul. (1992)  A declining empire goes to war. In J. J. Fahey, & R. Armstrong. A (Eds.). Peace Reader: Essential Readings on War, Justice, Non-Violence and World Order, Rev. Ed. (pp. 76-85). New York: Paulist Press.

"II. Just War...

The following are widely regarded rules which must be followed:

(1) Just Cause. Citizens may engage in a war only to defend the innocent. Offensive wars are not permitted.

(2) Legitimate Authority.  Only those duly constitutionally authorized may declare a war if it is to be legitimate.  In the United States this power is exclusively reserved to the Congress.

(3) Right Intention. Total victory must not be the goal of the war but rather the restoration of injured rights.

(4) Last Resort. All nonviolent methods must be exhausted before a war can legitimately begin.  This includes boycotts, mediation, arbitration, diplomacy, and the activity of international institutions such as the United Nations and the World Court.

(5) Probability of Success. There must be a reasonable and measured hope that insured rights will be restored without disproportionate damage to any resulting peace.  A war may not be fought if it is probably that the evil results will outweight the desired good.

(6) Just Conduct. Innocent. Innocent civilians may not be objects of military action. The war is to be strictly limited to combat between opposing soldiers, and even then not all weapons are permitted (such as atomic, biologic, and chemical weapons).

(7) Proportionality. A war ceases to be just when it becomes evidenttually committed outweaghs the expected good.  Proportionality always demands that any surrender will recognize legimate conditions for surrender proposed by the losing nation." (p. 83; underlines mine)

 So, just in case you didn't notice there are a few things there that seemed to miss Mr. Davidson's attention.  Maybe the full list as per Kennedy wouldn't have passed the censor or would have raised too much of a stink.  I underlined the ones that were completely ommitted by Davidson, and those are the ones that would have put more limitations on the military than they would have accepted.  The just conduct one is especially always included in the just war theories so to omit it is just unheard of, really, except maybe in military circles I guess, where they routinely rework things to their pleasing.  That way they can toss around the word "just word" only they're thinking their definition and the rest of the world is thinking the standard definition.  The chaplains are part of military think, evidently.  In how many other ways is this so?

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Section three is divided into two sections, the first of which is titled:

(1) "Limiting the Causes of War: Defense"

"War is always judged twice," according to Michael Walzer," first with reference to the reasons states have for fighting, secondly with reference to the means they adopt". (Walzer, p. 21) The first judgment, whether to go to war or not, is more often made by politicians than soldiers. But, as we learned in Vietnam, sooner or later citizens and soldiers also make judgments on the rightness or wrongness of war...

The implicatioin of these judgments is that each of us retains the ethical responsibility to judge the causes of war, and to object to those who are wrong.  However, soldiers in the first echelon most often do not have eenough information to judge whether or not a war is justified.  And, until we do, we should trust the judgment of our leaders." (p. 39)

This is crucial here, but not how you might think.  I'm going to use this as a comparison to the situation in the Vienna mission.  I've already said many times that there was segregation of knowledge, where everyone was on a kind of "need-to-know" basis and individuals only knew and had access to information necessary for their work.  Their were at least a couple ways you people had access to more information than others.  One was by working your way sort of inward in the informal organization, and that would be one kind of information.  The other way was by more formal job, which generally didn't change much (unless you were me and it changed approximately quarterly - you can NOT say I don't know how to deal with ambiguity).

I think of it a lot like the anciet gnostic system in many ways, although the comparison isn't perfect.

At the very heart of the system is the board of directors, and right behind them are the director, assistant director and North America director, who are all on the board anyway along with representatives from the member missions.   These guys all really know what's going on.  But remember there's this big secrecy thing and the need-to-know principle and it's better not to know more than you need to because who knows just your luck you'd get picked up by a security guard in Bulgaria who'd question you up the wazoo and you'd be up a creek without a paddle.  We never had a big problem because we were careful, but it could be a disaster if we did, so better safe than sorry, right?  And no one wants to be the first one to be in that kind of situation and spill the beans.  So they're just as happy to not know everything when they go in these countries.

But the thing is that when they were treating me the way they did and putting some of the other issues together - chaplaincy, my father, the mission (on the board) that I used to work with that took money from the CIA - so I began to be really uncomfortable about that area of secrecy and not like it so much.

This text says that soldiers in the first echelons don't have enough information on which to base a decision so they should just trust their leaders until they do have enough information, but I couldn't do that because I had enough information that I couldn't trust them and then when I arrived in Vienna I trusted them well enough but how they treated me clicked too well into other things that I couldn't trust them.

So the thing is that, does this belong in a mission?  Obviously a whole lot of Christians think that Christians and the government and politics and military and the ethics of how they use psychology is all great and fine and they think it's just okay and just another day on the mission field and I"m  just making a mountain out of a molehill.  And I think Christianity is really in a mess.  It feels lonely to be in such a minority though.

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I think that's all I'm going to comment on on this article, although from a pacifist perspective it just begs a thorough tearing apart.  I don't think that's what I want to do right now though.

281. Blog May Stand Still, But Life Doesn't!

It's hard for me to return to talking about the past when so much is happening in the present! I'm still here at my same address, though (i.e., I haven't moved yet). That's for the most part because I'm still waiting for the bank to decide whether they'll accept my offer (it's for a "short sale," which - for those not versed in U.S. real estate lingo - is a sale of a property with a for less than the going market rate. The bank holding the mortgage has to decide whether it will accept the offer from a potential buyer. In my case, I offered the amount the seller - representatives handling the estate of the now deceased owner - presented as being "pre-authorized" by the bank holding the mortgage. However, I eventually learned that this sale amount wasn't "pre-authorized" in the usual formal sense of the word. Rather, it was the amount that the bank had counter-offered to a potential buyer not long before I came on the scene, so the estate handlers sort of assumed that this amount was "pre-authorized".

Anyway, I've been continuing to work on getting the condo set up, and in any case, I'm going to buy a condo at this complex, whether it's this unit or not. But other than that, my health has provided more fodder for news and excitement than I like. This isn't a case where "no news is good news" can be used. That is, the fact that I haven't written here does not mean that I have nothing of interest to write. Au contraire! No, since the last time I wrote to you I've been in e.r. twice (after consulting with my doctors' and health insurance's after-hours services. And, I've been admitted likewise twice into the hospital. However, they still haven't determined with great certainty what is causing my symptoms. O, yeah, and I also have been walking with a walker since my last week-long hospital stay. And the walker is a whole story in itself!

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The story of the walker goes like this: on my 5th day in the hospital last time a nurse told me she thought my trouble walking was because I wasn't up and walking around enough. Huh? Armed with that stupidity in mind, I vowed to get up and walk around after having my shower (which I had to take sitting on the floor of the bath tub because their rules disallowed either taking a bath (there was not plug for the drain) or sitting on a chair in the shower and I wasn't stable enough to risk standing to take a shower.

This was mid evening. So true to my word, after the shower I made myself presentable (by hospital standards, which means mostly wearing a bath robe in order to be properly covered up and not displaying ones backside, wear the hospital gown ties up. I should mention that the entire time in the hospital when a physical therapist came s/he'd bring a walker and go with me walking up and down the hall a bit, but then take the walker away when the session ended. So I was left to my own devices when it came to walking in the absence of a physical therapist. So walking after my shower meant trying to walk without the aid of a walker. So I got by by holding on the rail along the hall. I reached a corner in the hallway - like a T-intersection where you have to decide whether to go right or left because straight ahead is not an option - I looked both ways and who should I meet but my rheumatologist! He was doing something at a computer in the hallway maybe 20 feet or so away from me. I had missed an appointment with him because of being in the hospital and had asked for a consult with him. He didn't recognize me at first, which isn't that surprising since he'd never seen me in my bathroom and with my head wrapped up in a towel turban-style. After I told him my name he cam over and I told him why I was walking around - what the nurse had said, and he agreed that my trouble walking was not because of muscular weakness due to lack of use (of the muscle(s)). He also offered to write a prescription for a walker for me.

The next morning I asked the nurse about the walker, and she acknowledged having seen the script for the walker in my chart but told me that I wouldn't be given the walker until discharge from the hospital. So based on this information I didn't ask about it again until I was being discharged.

Upon learning I was being discharged I had to arrange for follow up appointments for the following week, figure out how I was getting home (I'd come via ambulance), and otherwise go through the usual discharge routine. However, this was being done by nurses at the same time they were taking care of their other patients too. So somewhere in there I inquired about the promised walker... only to learn that there evidently wasn't a script for it. I insisted that there was a script and the nurse checked and double checked, and it wasn't in my records. So then the nurse said that the doctor would have to physically come in to sign the script. I told them that my rheumatologist had already written the script, and I was told that he wasn't my doctor while in the hospital (?!). I eventually understood that the script had either been either intentionally taken out of my records or accidentally misplaced. I said I wouldn't leave without the walker so I had to say another night. The next morning I was told the script was signed and I'd get the walker Monday at home. Satisfied with that (oh foolish me!), I agreed to be discharged.

Upon arrival at home my neighbor lent me her walker on the assumption that it would be only 2 days, until Monday. I waited... and waited... finally by Tuesday mid-day with no word about the phantom walker I was to receive, I called my doctor's office, the rheumatologist and also my primary care doctor, and I also mentioned it to the neurosurgeon, whom I saw on Monday. So at that point both the rheumatologist and neurosurgeon were working on the walker, but my primary care seemed to be AWOL (absent without leave, a military crime worthy of court martial). Finally, by Thursday I got a call from a company arranging to bring me a walker. The next day someone else came by with a walker, which I did not accept. It turns out that that second walker was from the rheumatologist, so I guess I got the walker the neurosurgeon prescribed. Anyway, I'm still walking with a walker, although the physical therapist is helping me and sometimes I'm able to use just a cane.

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And this brings me to another point... when I was discharged from the hospital I was sent home with a script for physical therapy at home and a home health aid. A nurse comes by from time to time too.

And what are my symptoms? It quite possibly might be easier to answer that are NOT my symptoms, but I'll try my best to answer what ARE my symptoms: weakness and poor control in the legs, tingling and sometimes pain in my feet, cold feet, poor balance, acting up of my autoimmune allergic reaction (specifically redness in the upper chest and facial swelling), tingling in the face accompanied by fatigue, pain in the mid back and also in the gut, g.i. system slow down/malfunction, loss of feeling in my feet (not good for driving a stick shift/automatic transmission car). So now I have increased medications, have dizziness excercises tacked on to my usual heath routine, have to keep my legs elevated to minimize foot pain, tingling and lack of sensation, have to pay more attention to my g.i. system, etc., etc.

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At the same time I'm working on getting set up in the new condo and hoping against hope that my general contractor is honest, because I just can't deal with problems on that front on top of everything else. But now I'm living in a personal canyon of boxes in my dinky little apartment. Part of the boxes are from packing up, but a good chunk of them are things I've ordered for the new apartment when I find things I've liked at good prices. I'm having to be my own interior decorator, because even if I could afford an interior decorator, noone will work for you until you own the place. But knowing my health I feel like I have to do as much as I can while I'm reasonably able, because I never know when my health will "head south" as they say (i.e., worsen). And, as a bit of insurance against contractor problems, I'm buying most of the things that they have to install. But things are starting to slow down regarding condo set up, at least as far as what can be done before I actually own the unit.

I must say, however, that my health and the condo prep has been a good diversion from thinking about mom and family. There's no getting around the idea that she's happier where she is now (from a Christian standpoint), but it's hard to deal with all the suffering she'd gone through prior to her death. Lately I've thought about it a bit as things otherwise slow down for me some.

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Here's the real trigger to my writing today, though. I got a call from a cousin, who's a Christian and has spent some time with mom and my brother in recent years, after dad's death 5 years ago in particular. She called yesterday to ask my forgiveness for her not believing me about my concerns about how my brother there was treating mom. It turns out that since mom's death she's seen the angry side of him that she hadn't seen before, and now one of this cousin's brothers (who isn't a Christian) doesn't want anything to do with my brother because of his anger.

In these kinds of things it's not really appropriate to gloat about being right, because it would be better if I hadn't have been right, and mom's the one that suffered. I've told you here how I've been stymied at ways to help mom, but that mom and dad had things set up so that my influence in family matters was negligible, but my brothers played a major role also in making sure things were set up that way. Still, I'm sorry that mom had to suffer in this way - from my brother. But I hope that you will also see that people eventually come to recognize that I'm right in many of my interpretations of events and people. While it would probably be foolish to claim to be right all the time, I hope you can see that at the very least my perspectives on things probably should not be dismissed lightly. My family had build up an informal mechanism for keeping family issues secret and this mechanism could even fool people close to them, but I saw it for something otherwise (than what they wanted people to believe) and stuck to my beliefs with the conviction that I had enough to go on that I was convinced I was right. One other thing you can learn about me from this is that I don't change convictions easily and also I'm not afraid of going against the flow in my thinking.

It's hard, really, to deal with getting this confirmation that mom was abused by my brother (emotionally and verbally if not physically). The fact that I did as much as I could to try to help maybe alleviates any guilt feeling I might have, but it doesn't help the sorrow of this confirmation that she experienced this kind of treatment. You can see from other things I've written here that my relationship with mom has sometimes been rocky, but in all actuality, I think the ultimate cause of this goes back to the men in our family and the fact that mom was so dependent on them and they were so "persuasive" in affecting her views on things.

In the weeks or couple months before mom's death she had told me that she and dad didn't know about the things I'm writing here. But the thing is that they couldn't have known because I didn't trust dad enough to tell them. If dad had found out I was thinking or experiencing these things he would have very convincingly dismissed them and mom would have believed him and disbelieved me. It would have been very difficult for me to write some of these things things when dad was still alive.

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I still have a couple more things I need to get done before I return to this blog in full force.

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P.S. I got to thinking that there is one time when I messed up when I might have been able to maybe help mom. That was when I was living in New York and my brother and mom came out to visit me and my other brother and his boys (mom and brother in Pacific N.W. and other brother with his boys in New England; I was living in an apartment owned by my brother in New England, since I'd lost my second job for health reasons.

The scenario was that I hadn't had a holiday with the family in years so I went overboard on preparations. I should have spent more time with mom, but the thing is that after she left from that visit things would be exactly like they were before and it wasn't like she was going to start let me help her apart from my brothers' efforts. So these kinds of things felt to me manipulative ways to try to sort of suck me into the family "game playing" (in the socio-psychological sense of the term; other members of the family would undoubtedly deny there was any "game playing" going on). The last thing anyone in my family was ever going to do was let me have independent relations with mom. While dad was alive, he could maintain direct relations with me because he was astute at some of the familial issues and had clout enough to keep the upper hand. In any regard, no one in the family but me had any realistic potential of countering him. Dad, for example, was where the buck stopped as far as framing (of issues, individuals, events, etc.) went. I was the only one who questioned him with any conviction. I think I was able to do this because of things I'd experienced apart from the family, but also because of certain knowledge I'd gained and also because of my personality. My experiences independent from the family led to independence of judgement and change in some of my values and opinions. Under the purview of my family it would have been more difficult to come to these divergent perspectives, so the geographic and attitudinal distance combined with certain personality traits provided the opportunity to diverge from our family mindset. One of the personality traits that allowed me this opportunity was that of being independent in nature, which dad blamed for my problems in Vienna with the mission. I will remind you, however, that independent of thought is a well-known American value, which Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous book "Democracy in America" noted in the 19th century. Americans valued independence so much that they speer-headed the unfettered free trade movement in the 20th century. I mean the kind of free trade that is unencumbered with legal limitations and lets the market go where it will. Let's just say that I'm the embodiment of that value and Americans should recognize me as their true child that I am, independent spirit and all. (I hope you understand I'm speaking tongue in cheek here.) And dad, who was quite politicized, held to republican hands-off rule, where the rights individuals and businesses aren't encroached upon by big government. In other words, he valued independence... except, it would appear, in me. Or maybe it wasn't so much that I was the problem as it was that there were limitations to his valuing of independence and I fit into one of these exceptions to the right-of-freedom belief. Or possibly, he was just acknowledging how in reality things worked, but in any case, I felt that he agreed with the limitations of freedom thrust on me (by the mission in Vienna, etc.), so my independence in this particular situation was out of line, and those attempting to limit my independence were right in limiting me. In this case, however, one must try to disentangle what was independence acceptable and when wasn't it, or what kind of independence was acceptable and what kind wasn't.

Anyway, this is all to say that I might have helped mom during her visit to New England, when I was living there. But since I wasn't going to join in the family relations as they were, this help would just have been a short-lived event, until they returned back home and my brother there would once again be the one to come between me and any help mom might get. The only way my help could have been more enduring would have been if she would have stepped in so that I could on an ongoing basis have direct access to her to help her. That wasn't going to happen, because doing this was beyond what she could accept emotionally. Giving me that kind of access to her would be tacitly (if not actively) acknowledging that our family was something other than idyllic.

267. Reprieve: Family Time-Out

It's hard to know sometimes what to write here about "private" family issues. The thing is, as in all such issues of "privacy" (including regarding internal workings of the Vienna mission), it's not always easy trying to determine...

1. what ethically / biblically / legally should (or should not) be "private";
2. what the effects might be of not keeping any particular thing "private" (including a) how others involved might respond; b) how innocent bystanders might be affected; c) how I might be affected (and I may or may not fit into b) in any particular issue);
   
3. what my intentions might be of revealing something that at least some people consider should be ethically / biblically private;
4. if the ethical / biblical mandate argues against something being / remaining private, what the best way is to reveal the heretofore private issue; and/or
   
5. the relevance of the private issue to my autobiography, which is what this blog is all about.
   

Regarding #1 above, if biblical mandate argues against something being/remaining private, such as in the case where sin is involved, I really should reveal it, and not doing so might even make me an accomplice, or at the very least an enabler. Ethical mandate is contingent upon what the ethical framework might be for determining whether something should or should not be kept private, and even the understanding of the biblical mandate could be subject to somewhat different interpretations of Scripture. However, biblical mandate should be based only on Scripture to be truly biblical, and any determination relying on extra-biblical sources and mandates would not be fundamentally biblical in nature. Legal mandate might be subject to how one views the Scriptural legitimacy of a legal determination. That is, if one believes that government mandates regarding family issues are unbiblical interference in the family, then one would therefore not recognize the legitimacy of legal mandates regarding family issues, in which case one is left with the biblical mandate and/or other ethical mandate(s), which, presumably, should not contradict the determination that the legal mandate is illegitimate.

Regarding the second issue, if one holds pragmatism (ends justifies the means and/or group consensus of right and wrong being the final yard stick) as having ultimate authority in determining what should or should not be revealed, than this concern would be the overriding issue in deciding whether a private concern should be revealed or not. If something other than pragmatism is accepted as the final moral measure, than #2 should not be a primary concern.

As to #3, my intentions would only be of issue if the basic value structure which allows for the maintenance or non-maintenance of secrecy makes my intentions a matter of concern. If it is determined that my intentions are an issue, this would likely be so out of concern for a) my moral, spiritual or psychological condition out of concern for me; b) my moral, spiritual or psychological condition because of concern for the affect intentions might play on how I carry out any revelation or non-revelation of a heretofore private issue; and/or c) the validity of my assertion regarding the heretofore private issue.

Point a) here seems irrelevant if taken purely and simply as a concern for my condition, as this says nothing about the heretofore private issue. (This isn't to say this concern might not be important on other grounds, but not vis a vis whether a heretofore private issue is rightfully private and/or should be revealed).

B) would be of concern for some methods of reasoning, as there could be determinations regarding better or less good ways of revealing or not revealing something something by which I might be judged, and this might include judgment of my intentions. However, this does not address the issue of whether something should or should not be revealed, just how it should or should not be revealed. In this light, then, I might be chided for revealing or not revealing something in the wrong way, but that would not discredit the revelation or non-revelation itself. For example, I might reveal something in a way someone views as wrong, while still recognizing that I was right in revealing the issue in general; I just did it in the wrong way, in such a case. This issue, I think, is separate from the the heretofore private issue itself and also the basic determination of whether or not something should or should not be revealed. Whether or not I reveal something in the right way or not, however, has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of the issue itself. So, for example, if someone is involved in child abuse, and I reveal it incorrectly, my revealing such a situation in a "wrong" way says nothing about whether the child abuse itself is right or wrong and should not be used as a way to detract from the wrongness of the child abuse.

Option C) above could well be combined with B), but could also be completely separate from B). In the case that it is completely separate from B), there would be no actual concern for me at all, but only for the heretofore private issue and perhaps those individuals that it involves. That is, in this case a determination concerning the correctness or incorrectness of my intentions includes no consideration for my moral or spiritual well-being.

The fourth issue would affect #3 as described above, but here the focus is on the yardstick for determining rightness or wrongness / better or worse approaches to revealing or not revealing heretofore private issues. In other words, this point pushes us to establish guidelines, apart from what I might or might not actually do. Presumably, this could come chronologically before some of the above issues, but not necessarily. That is, one might not think through this aspect of the dilemma, and just come to conclusions more or less by the seat of one's pants - that is, as a sort of knee-jerk reaction. In this case, it is quite possible (or even likely) that attributing all these moralistic aspects of the process (of determining what and how to reveal or not reveal something) to real-life contexts might be assigning more intentionality to the parties involved than is actually the case. This would not mean that there is necessarily no logic in such cases, but rather than any logic is quite likely less conscious than I'm assuming here. I don't think this fact (that reasoning might be more unconscious than otherwise), negates the above discussions, however, because these kinds of considerations could still be relevant, just less consciously so.

Finally, there is the issue (#5) as to whether, from a literature standpoint, the heretofore private issue is relevant to my autobiography. I think the family issues are generally relevant in as much as family is a big part of my life, in various ways. As such, it comprises a big part of who I am and also my concerns and, to a certain extent, how I might be the way I am. Some things about who I am might be difficult to understand apart from family, but also, when I eventually arrive at the present in my autobiographical chronology, it might be difficult to understand why and how certain things happen without understanding private family issues. Whether or not this is enough to justify revealing these issues here in this blog is subject to the other considerations (1 through 4). The thing for me that is so difficult is that so much of my life seems to have been subject to this secrecy rule that if I were to refrain from discussing private things altogether the reader would basically have an understanding of my life that everyone else (not myself) frames for me as they desire for their own ends, and my understanding gets completely lost in the shuffle. In such a case it seems like I would have to turn this blog into a biography, rather than an autobiography, because my own views of my life would be buried and ignored. In this case, where does one draw the line in knowing what to reveal (let alone how to reveal things)? It seems that there is always some justification or another for maintaining secrecy, which always argues against revealing heretofore private things. That is, it seems that most everyone in my life appears to be dead set on framing my life (or certain aspects of it) in their terms, which is contingent upon the maintenance of secrecy, that is keeping heretofore secret things secrets. Where, then does my perspective fit in? It doesn't. In this way my perspective, pure and simple, is wrong, illegitimate, or otherwise immoral in one way or another, according to all my detractors, some of whom are otherwise relationally quite close to me.

And there you have my dilemma(s) in a nutshell.

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I'm sorry if I've missed something here, and I should say that I'm not really a philosopher by training, but I hope I'm making some sense here.

***

So why am I going through all the trouble to discuss this here? I'm doing this because I want you to understand some of the issues I'm grappling with in trying to decide what to write here and what not to write... or how to write something. Right now the big issue is regarding present-day interpersonal relations and the like, because of recent events in my life. So I want you to see that when I write something here, especially something of more current concern, I'm not writing it heedlessly or without at least some thought. In turn, I hope the reader will likewise keep in mind some of these concerns I've discussed in this post when assigning moral determinations related to what I post here.

Also, while I do have some protection of anonymity here, there are a few people who know who I am. And although I could decide at a later date to change or delete any particular comment or post, as anyone who knows how the Internet works, such later change or deletion is not necessarily a fool-proof option. That is, even if I make changes, the earlier version of this blog or a particular post could well be cached somewhere else on the Internet.

The other immediate reason for writing this post is that there are several issues currently that are distracting me and might fall within this "family secrets" category. So I'm trying to decide what to do about these things in real life and also vis a vis this blog.

69. Espionage (CIA, KGB, FBI) File, Pt. 10 (Levinger, pt. 1) (Was:Spy File, Part IX)

I'm skipping over several things I have in my file that are sort of interesting but only tangentially applicable, maybe. So now I'm down to 2 books that I'm not sure about - whether to proceed with them or not here. But I'll touch a little on the first one now (and decide on the other one later).

This one is actually a special issue of the Journal of Social Issues (v. 43, no. 3, 1987) on "Covert Facilitation of Crime" with the issue editor being George Levinger.

The topic at hand here is really about issues around the use of "covert facilitation" of law enforcement agencies in the apprehension of crime in the USA. In the editor's introduction he gives this definition:

"As defined by Braithwaite, Fisse, and Geis in this issue, covert facilitation, is 'the practice of law enforcement officials who seek through the conscious use of deception to encourage criminal acts under circumstances where they can be observed by undercover operatives.' (p.6); the goal is to catch potential offenders." (p. 2)

The only way that I can think of for that to apply to my situation exactly, would be if a U.S. law enforcement agency / officer(s) tried to see if I had any intentions getting involved in espionage (via my dad, for example). I can't say that I experienced anything like that. But sometimes I did feel like I was being intimidated indirectly by (to me what seemed to be) unusual events, so that I would forsake my interest in Eastern Europe/USSR. This is really something different and it's probable that completely different laws, at least, would be involved, if not also different possible agencies.

So the one thing this book does give me, though, is some indication of what law enforcers do/can do by way of covert facilitation that may at least let me know if any of the things I experienced had been used in this covert facilitation context, and if so, maybe such means could be used to protect my dad and his work by means of trying to hinder me.

I know this is rather circuitous thinking, but, believe me, if you'd been through some of the things I had been through, you'd understand that any sort of glimmer that such things might happen even if in a somewhat different context, then it possibly could have happened to you to. That's a lot of hedging, but it's hard living with a lot of questions unanswered about some really awful things.

So that's why I even have this journal issue in this file, and I'll proceed with it from that standpoint.

***

From the lead article:

Covert facilitatation and crime: restoring balance to the entrapment debate, by John Brathwaite, Brent Fisse & Gilbert Geis, p. 5-41.

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The referenced articles (which I omit as noted by the ...) are dated from 1977 to 1986.

"Criminal justice practices have become increasingly subversive of privacy... There has been expanded use of undercover agents and informers, and increased emphasis on campaigns to have citizens report drug users to the police (including instances of children turning in their parents), phone tapping, electronic eavesdropping, hidden cameras, periscopic prisms, electronic bracelets for tracking persons under house arrest, lie detector tests, 'spy dust,' computerized data banks, satellite surveillance, and similar procedures... Gary T. Marx... has been the leading figure in documenting what Michel Foucault ... called the modern state's 'subtle calculated technology of subjection.'" (p. 7)

Some of these things, like "computerized data banks", seem pretty routine today, but others, such as the eavesdropping and hidden cameras might raise a few hackles. If law enforcers are doing these kind of things in an effort to apprehend (potential) criminals, it seems likely that it would be easy for them to use these things in a case like mine, depending on the laws and other possible restrictions different from the covert facilitation context discussed here. And this was roughly the time frame too, that it might have applied in my case.

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"Covert facilitation guidelines cannot be written to provide much practical protection against abuse. Nor can the prior approval of a judge bring in substantial practical control over any unfairness by the police in carrying out the undercover operation as it unfolds." (p. 12)

If protection in covert facilitation is difficult, I think it would be even more so in a case involving protecting a high-profile military project such as SDI.

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"Covert facilitation is an appealing law enforcement tactic to nab drug addicts, dissidents, or prostitutes, but a less attractive strategy when it comes to white-collar criminals." (p. 25-26)

This is only interesting because of my social movement research in which agents did infiltrate cell groups preparing for major protests.

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"Milgram's... renowned work indicated that experimental subjects are prone to obey authority figures when commanded to perform hurtful and, by general standards, immoral acts." (p. 34)

If you are unfamiliar with this experiment check out what Wikipedia has to say about it, or BBC's re-enactment of it.

Using this kind of psychology, what would it have taken for people to turn against me if told to do so? (But who would tell them to do so if they did?) I don't know, but I also do not know how some of the things happened to me that did during my Vienna tenure.

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Restoring realism and logic to the covert facilitation debate, by Gary T. Marx, p. 43-55.

"Looking at the history of U.S. law enforcement, the key question is: How over the last century (and particularly the last decade), has the United States gone from being among the Western nations most opposed to domestic secret police practices to being their leading practitioner (and even exporter) for criminal cases...?" (p. 46)

It seems to me that even though the immediate topic is covert facilitation in this whole journal issue, that this question is broader than that, and refers to all sorts of "domestic secret police practices." Without any other details to go on, it doesn't tell us much, but is sort of enlightening if researchers of the field note this broad trend. It could provide a context wherein some of my experiences might have been more plausibly explained. I hope I'm not too far out in left field or grasping at straws in my hopes for some clarity regarding my life experiences.

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"The recent expansion of undercover tactics does not stand alone; it must be seen as part of gradual changes that are making social control more intrusive, manipulative, hidden, intensive, and extensive. Covert facilitation must be considered alongside enhanced dossier, electronic, biological, and chemical means of surveillance and control." (p. 54)

Well, now we at least have a blatant extension of the trend to other areas. But what are biological and chemical means of surveillance?

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The risks of covert facilitation, by Jerome H. Skolnick, p. 79-85.

"The requirements for issuing a warrant to wiretap are stringent. Title III of 18 U.S.C. #2510-20 prescribes a careful procedure for obtaining a warrant, and federal law preempts state law." (p. 82)

I never felt like the U.S. was eavesdropping on me. But in the USSR/Russia yes, and maybe also in Austria, but I'd need to check my notes about that time period, since so much has happened since.

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"That covert facilitation will not be used indiscriminately - against politically dangerous persons - seems naive. Once we institutionalize a practice to control one set of dangerous criminals, we are scarcely in a position to protest its use against another 'dangerous' category." (p. 83)

I think the author means by "politically dangerous" someone who could be harmful to one's (a politician's) political aims - maybe Watergate-like targets.

But still, the point here is that the use of something like covert facilitation wouldn't just end where it was supposed, with the legal uses of it.

That's the whole trouble with covert things, if I may take a moment to go into a tirade (that's one of the benefits of this being my blog), once you enter a world of secrecy than everything is possible... well, almost. But you know what I mean.

Here's my understanding of the Scriptural stance on these kinds of things:

John 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

Ephesians 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

And instead of trusting in our own wisdom and strength, here's another way that doesn't involve secrecy and hiding and doing things in the dark, behind closed doors:

For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead (II Cor. 1:8-9)

Of course, missions and Christians in general should particularly consider these things, but it also shows in general what I think of this whole secrecy thing.

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Here's another excellent quote that reaches far beyond the specific subject matter it addresses:

"But it seems just as reasonable to focus on the psychology of the investigator. Can psychologists help answer the question of whether we should be skeptical of the testimony of an investigator who has spent much of his career covert facilitating? Put more abstractly, to what extent do deceptive practices - especially those encouraging wrongdoing - generalize to become absorbed throughout one's personality, thus impairing the moral character of the wrongdoer? Put more colloquially, can an accomplished conman - with or without badge - ever be trusted?" (p. 85)

Let me rephrase this a bit:

Can an accomplished missionary to 'closed' countries, considering s/he's spent much of his/her career being deceptive in his/her ministry ever be trusted? If such a missionary is deceptive with border patrol, others asking about the work ("we do publishing"), other missionaries, where does the deception end?

I really hope someone, and NOT a mission itself, write an honest history of what really went/goes on in 'closed' country missions, and specifically those who worked in the former East Bloc countries.

But I also feel that my dad may have been guilty here to a certain extent. Overall I think he had a lot of integrity, but I think regarding things of his work, and even sometimes as related to me, he may have had to live a bit in this underworld. I do know that after he retired he was able to focus more on his spiritual life and I think he really grew in that realm, so I wonder if not just having more time as a retired person, but the constraints of his work freed him inside to have a deeper spiritual life. I'm not sure, but maybe.

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That's all for that book. There wasn't a lot of substance to help me unravel my experiences, but it might help with some of the broader framework issues.

~ Meg