The Devil’s Tools

     You may sometimes wonder why I spend so much time talking about what I call the Domination System and the ways its values contrast with the values of the commonwealth of God. What, you may ask, do these questions have to do with my life? Why should I care?

     Well, a couple of days ago we saw a graphic demonstration of why it’s important in this particular historical moment to pay close attention to the Domination System and the myth of redemptive violence that animates it. This demonstration took place live on CNN on Monday in Jake Tapper’s interview with the hawkiest of President Trump’s advisors, Stephen Miller.

     The discussion centered around the US’s recent military strikes on Caracas and the capture and rendition of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to stand trial in the US on drug charges. Tapper raised the question of who is now in charge of Venezuela. Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, has been sworn in as the new president, but President Trump has said on numerous occasions that “we,” or specifically he, is “running” the country. Tapper directly asked Miller, “Is [Rodríguez] running Venezuela or not?”

     Miller’s answer was both telling and chilling. He said, “What the president said is true: the United States of America is running Venezuela. By definition that’s true. Jake, we live in a…world in which—you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else—but we live in a world—the real world, Jake—that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” He went on to point out that the US military has Venezuela surrounded and that “we set the terms and conditions” by which that country now needs to abide.

     This is about as bald a statement of the aims and philosophy of the Domination System as you are likely to hear. The real world—these agents of the System always insist that they live in the real world and anyone who disagrees with them dwells in some laughable fantasy land—the “real world” is governed by strength, force, and power. Down here it’s just winners and losers, and don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line. Be a winner. Enforce your will. Set the terms and conditions. Take. Rule. Control.

     And we see the fruits of this philosophy in other areas of our national and international life. The president has renewed his calls for the US to somehow buy or annex or simply take Greenland. He has suggested that the same action taken in Venezuela could be used in places like Colombia, Mexico, and Cuba as well. And yesterday in Minneapolis we saw the tragic results of a policy of governing the world with strength, force, and power: an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good as she appeared to be trying to leave the scene of a confrontation in her vehicle.

     Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem asserted at a press conference yesterday afternoon that the victim was committing an act of domestic terrorism, trying to run over the ICE agents who had surrounded her vehicle, but a close examination of the video footage calls that interpretation into question. Good appeared to be trying to drive away; the wheels of her SUV were pointed away from the agent when he opened fire. You can see an evaluation of the video here: https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000010631041/minneapolis-ice-shooting-video.html, but I caution you that it contains graphic images.

     What we have in our country today is a philosophy of power-over, of might-makes-right run amok. That’s the Domination System, alive and active on the streets of Minneapolis and Caracas, shoving people around and taking lives. But don’t kid yourself, the System is present right here in Reading, too. It is alive and active and deadly everywhere it has taken root in our hearts and minds, and there is only one good way to defeat and defuse it. We can’t eradicate it by fighting against it, because as soon as we start to use the System’s weapons against it we find that we have been co-opted by that very System. That’s the insidious nature of the myth of redemptive violence: as I write in Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven, “When you play by the devil’s rules, using the devil’s tools, it doesn’t matter which side you think you are on. The devil always wins.”

     No, the only effective way to challenge and ultimately defeat the Domination System is by developing and practicing the alternative values of the commonwealth of God: nonviolent resistance, power-with, sharing, cooperation. You have heard me say all this before, but the events of this past week show that we need to keep saying it and keep living it. We need to keep resisting and speaking out against the devil’s rule, and learn to use some different tools.