Brave New World Order

By Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer

Book Overview

In the aftermath of the Cold War, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer offers his most challenging book to date: a probing assessment of the meaning and implications of what U.S. leaders have called a ""new world order."" While the end of the Cold War and the mobilization of sanctions against Iraq opened the possibility of a truly new world order, Nelson-Pallmeyer argues that the Gulf War was used to serve a very different purpose. United States elites in the national security establishment instead sought to make the world safe for future wars, to derail the post-Cold War ""peace dividend,"" and to foreclose the possibility of a world order based on international justice and commitment to human rights. From the perspective of the Third World, where ever-greater debt leads to ever-greater death, Nelson-Pallmeyer shows how the ""new world order"" is only a new way of managing the old world order: the misery of the poor will continue to sustain the appetites of the rich. Parallel to the increased pauperization of the Third World, the 1980s saw the massive transfer of wealth within the United States, from the poor to the very wealthy. The consequences: the decay of our cities and dramatic increases in racial violence, drug abuse, and crime. At the same time, the impending ecological crisis has escalated rapidly. Finally, Nelson-Pallmeyer turns his attention to the role of Christians in blessing the ""new world order."" Appalled by the abuse of religious rhetoric in justification of the Gulf War he examines how Jesus confronted the ""world order"" of his day, and calls for a radical discipleship that worships the God of life rather than the idols of power and wealth.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1532617011
• ISBN13: 9781532617010
• Release Date: January 2017
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Bush Jesus and War

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer wrote this book published in 1992 by Orbis of the Maryknolls (Catholic Missionaries). Viewed from the perspective of one involved in the Cold War in Central America, this is one range of a book. JPN argues that the (past and for that matter the current) war in Iraq was an extension of the military industrial state usurping the "peace dividend". Iraq being a target far enough away to prove a good for eating up contract cash. JPN reviews the rise of the National Security Defense State as a consequence of the threat that peace made. Some interesting revelations made including Reagan's secret presidential national security directives including one that called for 40 detention facilities on US soil in the event of the necessity of incarcerating up to 400,000 if it would be necessary to suspend the Constitution. (The current version passed of the Patriot Act has detention facilities being planned on US soil for "immigrants" and "other projects" and the current list of problem persons for the administration number just below 400,000.) Of even greater interest is his summary chapters of what can be done from an overall view of Jesus. This is a view of the morality of Iraq war viewed from a bible perspecti Jesus is seen as thru the Gospel of Mark with the "good News" being a change from the Roman empire order being told. JNP also sees the issue of religious authorities being co-oped by a state partially providing to the religous authorities a revenue source (somewhat like today's faith based initiatives.) I found the book intriguing from the his perspective and especially now with some years distancing the two Iraq wars. I kept hoping that religous fundamentalists who mangle the "good news" of Jesus should all read this book before the November elections of 2006 and before their new sermons support the GOP or some other corporatists blindly.