[Dialogue] Fwd: UPDATE FOR SMU PETITION SIGNERS JUNE 27, 2008

[George Holcombe]

Here's Andrew's latest on the SMU - Bush library.  If you haven't  
signed the petition, please do so - you don't have to be a Methodist  
to do so.

George Holcombe
14900 Yellowleaf Tr.
Austin, TX 78728
Home: 512/252-2756
Mobile 512/294-5952
geowanda at earthlink.net


Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Andrew Weaver" <ajWEAVER711 at AOL.COM>
> Date: July 2, 2008 2:02:04 PM CDT
> To: "George Holcombe" <geowanda at earthlink.net>
> Subject: UPDATE FOR SMU PETITION SIGNERS JUNE 27, 2008
> Reply-To: listmanager at vitalvisuals.com
>
> I am Andrew J. Weaver, organizer of the petition at  
> www.protectSMU.org and an ordained United Methodist clergyman and  
> research psychologist. I am a graduate of Southern Methodist  
> University (SMU) and live in New York City. There are over 12,200  
> petition signers including hundreds of SMU alum who are deeply  
> concerned about the future of the university.
> Our Educational Effort Began
> Last week an intensive educational effort began regarding the Bush  
> project at SMU. It includes a website with interactive capability.  
> You can find the website at www.whatwouldjwdo.net.
>
> Our goal is to persuade South Central Jurisdiction delegates to  
> reject the SMU/Bush Foundation lease proposal when they meet in  
> Dallas at the Hilton Anatole Hotel, July 15-19. We are seeking to  
> convince the “court of public opinion” through the media that the  
> SMU-Bush linkage is injurious to both SMU and the United Methodist  
> Church (UMC) that owns the university.
>
> A Letter to SCJ Delegates from Tex Sample
> On June 30, 2008, the letter below was sent from Dr. Tex Sample,  
> emeritus professor at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, to  
> all the SCJ delegates.
>
> Goodyear, Arizona
> June 25, 2008
>
> Dear South Central Jurisdictional Conference Delegate,
>
> Having been a Jurisdictional delegate many times, I have some sense  
> of the heavy responsibilities you now bear and the claims upon you.  
> I write you, then, about a matter of great urgency and significance  
> or I would not otherwise ask for your attention.
>
> On March 14, 2007, Southern Methodist University asked the Mission  
> Council, a meeting of SCJ representatives, for permission to lease  
> campus property to the Bush Foundation as the site for the President  
> George W. Bush library, museum, and policy institute.
>
> In January 2008, following the Mission Council meeting, the SCJ  
> College of Bishops interpreted the action of the Mission Council and  
> gave the assurance, requested by the Bush Foundation, that the  
> Mission Council had authority to approve the lease of the  
> jurisdictional property on the SMU campus.
>
> But the College of Bishops does not have this authority according to  
> Paragraph 56, Article II.4 of the constitution of The United  
> Methodist Church (p. 38). In the 2004 Book of Discipline, it  
> specifically states: “The Judicial Council shall have authority to  
> hear and determine the legality of any action taken therein by any  
> jurisdictional conference board or body, upon appeal by one-third of  
> the members thereof in a Jurisdictional Conference.”
>
> By giving their interpretation, the SCJ College of Bishops not only  
> preempted the authority of the Judicial Council but also set the  
> stage for the lease signing and for closing the door to a  
> Jurisdictional Conference vote.
>
> It may be that a technical case can be made for such an assumption  
> of your authority as a Jurisdictional Conference delegate. My  
> problem with the decision, however, is its totally inadequate regard  
> of the larger theological, ecclesial and ethical issues involved,  
> whether technically permissible or not.
>
> Unlike some, I do not object to the Bush Library and Museum, as  
> such, being on the SMU campus. While the Bush Administration is a  
> failed presidency, such political failure is a matter for serious  
> historical research and evaluation. It is important to remember,  
> however, that President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, which  
> provides former presidents and, after their deaths, their families  
> with unlimited powers to deny or grant access to documents generated  
> under their administrations. To be sure, one can appropriately be  
> concerned about matters that have to do with national security and  
> other important papers that need to be confidential, but the  
> National Archives and Records Administration handle these matters.  
> President Bush’s executive order is not needed for them. This  
> executive order places unjustifiable limitations on scholarship and  
> research.
>
> The greater problem is the partisan multi-million dollar Bush  
> Institute, which will be totally under the control of the Bush  
> Presidential Foundation, not SMU. While any viewpoints expressed by  
> Institute Fellows will accordingly be identified with the  
> Foundation, it nevertheless makes SMU the location and signifying  
> marker of this partisan think tank. Furthermore, the purpose of this  
> Institute is to promote the politically partisan and ethically  
> questionable ideas and policies of George W. Bush.
>
> The influence of neo-conservative and supply-side economic thought  
> and policy has been dominant in the United States now for more than  
> 35 years, and the Bush Administration the most disastrous example of  
> it. These politics and economics have contributed to a sharply  
> growing inequality in income and wealth, a tax system that serves  
> the rich, an increasing insecurity for middle class families, the  
> flattening of wages for workers while their productivity increases,  
> growing concentrations of power in corporate America and in the  
> media, and the loss of regulation of corporate activity resulting in  
> devastating disruptions of our national life, such as Enron and the  
> sub-prime loan housing crisis. This list names only a few of the  
> problems with neoconservative politics and supply-side economics.
>
> Furthermore, commitment to a so-called “free market” without regard  
> to the common good is a violation of Christian teaching. Not to  
> mention that commitment to a “free market” oblivious to  
> concentrations of economic power is delusional fantasy when it is  
> not a self-serving worldview committed to the interests of the few  
> at the expense of the many. What we have in neoconservative politics  
> and supply side economics is what someone has called “feeding the  
> horses so the birds can eat.”
>
> Even worse, Bush’s pre-emptive war against Iraq, the complicity of  
> his administration in torture, and the serious disregard for human  
> rights in the Bush administration campaign against terrorism raise  
> even more sharply the question of why we would permit this institute  
> on the SMU campus. The Social Principles state: “We believe war is  
> incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ…” (165, C). Is  
> this not even more so when the war is pre-emptive? The Social  
> Principles further declare: “the mistreatment or torture of persons  
> by governments for any purpose violates Christian teaching” (164,  
> A). The complicity of the Bush administration in torture stands  
> clearly in opposition to this teaching.
> Further, the Social Principles assert that “We strongly reject  
> domestic surveillance” (164, A), yet this has become policy in the  
> Bush administration. I have not mentioned at least five other  
> violations of The United Methodist Church’s Social Principles by the  
> Bush Administration: environmental abuses (Par. 160), the health of  
> children (162, C), the death penalty (164, G), social services and  
> poverty (163, E), and freedom of information (164, D).
>
> Parenthetically, the Bush complex will pay a single dollar for a 99- 
> year lease for the SMU property with a 249-year option to renew, all  
> of which the Bush Foundation has required. This means that the next  
> chance the SCJ will have to address this issue is the middle of the  
> 23rd century. This constitutes a direct endowment of the Bush  
> Institute through a 348-year give-away “lease” of land, which the  
> SCJ owns, to the Bush Foundation and its causes.
>
> Why is the SCJ making this kind of gift to any president and to the  
> promotion of policies and views which stand in direct contradiction  
> to the Social Principles and the positions of The United Methodist  
> Church?
>
> Finally, I do not wish to be disrespectful to our College of Bishops  
> whose interpretation, if not challenged, gives a final okay to this  
> matter. Many of them I know, respect and love. But under pressure  
> from President Bush’s representatives – one more example of the Bush  
> administration’s tendency to rush to a decision as they did in the  
> war on Iraq – our College of Bishops made a mistake that needs to be  
> reversed. I urge you to do so.
>
> Church order must take precedence here, especially when authority  
> for the review of the Mission Council action belongs to the Judicial  
> Council, and when approval of this use of the SMU campus actually  
> belongs to the South Central Jurisdiction. Even more important, the  
> SCJ ought not to subsidize or provide de facto endorsement to a  
> partisan institute that stands in opposition to our United Methodist  
> stated social witness.
>
> Grace and peace,
> Tex Sample
> Retired Clergy Member, Missouri Area
> SCJ Delegate, 1976-1996
>
> Growing the Petition
> Finally, please continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to  
> sign the petition. Each name is important. We need to tell officials  
> of the UMC at every level that we find that a partisan institute  
> honoring George W. Bush at SMU to be “utterly unacceptable.”
>
> With best regards,
> Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D. --- You are currently subscribed to  
> vitalnews as: geowanda at earthlink.net To unsubscribe send a blank  
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>

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