Greed, Lust and Power: Franciscan Strategies for Building a More Just World

Chapter One - Greed, Lust and Power: Franciscan Strategies for Building a More Just World: Three Disturbing Hypotheses

greed, lust And Power: frAnciscAn strAtegies for building A more Just world: three disturbing hyPotheses JosePh nAngle, o.f.m. introduction Let me first say a word about hypotheses. By definition they are tentative, non-conclusive, or to use a popular neologism “guesstimates .” The dictionary defines “hypothesis” as “an assertion subject to verification or proof … a conjecture.” I say this at the outset of this reflection as a disclaimer – perhaps even an apology – for what I will say about the overall topic of our symposium this weekend: “Franciscan Strategies for Building a More Just World.” The three hypotheses are observations I have made during what is by now a long and quite joyous life as a Franciscan. I make no particular claim to certainty regarding the validity of these statements. They are my own, quite fallible and absolutely open for discussion. In fact, as I begin here, I feel somewhat like the promoters of many modern medicines. We’ve all seen how the advertising for these remedies often includes warnings about the possible serious or even lethal side effects they could cause – “you may experience palpitations,” “fainting spells may occur,” “in some cases fatal heart attacks could happen,” “speak to your doctor before using this product.” And don’t we often react to these ads thinking that it would be much better not to try them at all? JosePh nangle 16 In addition, some hypotheses are more probable or readily acceptable than others. My guess is that of the three which I offer here, the first may be less of a challenge than the second and third. In any case here they are. first disturbing hyPothesis Power, Lust and Greed fairly well describe the American Empire of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. All of us who have spent significant time living abroad and seen the United States through the lens of another people in another culture know how different our country looks from that perspective. That is one of the great benefits of overseas experience – being able to see our country of origin, our culture from quite another point of view. My fifteen years of service in two of my province’s Latin American missions brought me to an increasing awareness that the United States represents the latest example of world powers that have included Rome, Spain and Great Britain – to name just three – which have earned the name “empire” in the course of human history. Without going into too much detail on my time overseas, from the vantage point of Bolivia and Peru I came to see that the United States is the proverbial “500 pound gorilla” in today’s family of nations. Our country has an economic, political, sociological and cultural projection that literally spans the globe and imposes itself on virtually every country on earth. I saw first-hand this projection in action during my time in Peru when the government there quite legitimately attempted to nationalize an American-owned iron mine which had long-since yielded profits that far exceeded the company’s initial investment. In the end Peru had to back down in the face of threats from our country to cut our foreign aid to them. That’s an empire at work. More recently, others have described the American Empire with even more precision. It is said that the US imposes its will on the whole planet, too often unconcerned with the consequences of its imperial reach. Thus, in terms of the subject matter for this franciscan strategies for Building a More Just World 17 Symposium, imperial America exemplifies most of the effects of Greed, Lust and Power: – it dictates economic policies through impositions such as NAFTA and CAFTA (the so-called “free trade agreements”) and through its overbearing influence in lending institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – it contributes inordinately to the destruction of the planet through excessive consumption (the well-known statistic: 6% of the world’s population using 40% of its resources), through air pollution, and in recent decades our insatiable need for oil which has resulted in ecological disasters such as the one currently taking place in the Gulf of Mexico – it has initiated cruel wars, for example, in Afghanistan and Iraq, with little concern for life and death (during just one day in Fallujah, Iraq – April 11, 2004: 500 Iraqis were killed by US fire, 157 women and 146 children) – it...