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Wowzers!
mood: 
aggravated
aggravatedmusic: Finland red, Egypt white - Sisters of Mercy
I, personally, do not believe in a personification of all that is evil; nor do I believe in a personification of pure good. However, I do believe in the existence of both good and evil and that all beings are capable of either and commit either in varying degrees. That, however, is neither here nor there.
It bothered me that they immediately jumped to the conclusion that her personal opinions on what being pagan is and how pagans would/should react to terrorism or violence in general were seen as her Pontificating the One True Way. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that, now that being a pagan or a witch is becoming more mainstream, there are more Pagans who ASSUME that any voiced or published opinion is someone telling them how a pagan is supposed to act/think.
I, myself, appear to be guilty of assuming that pagans as a whole have a tendency to think more for themselves than those on some of the more circumscribed spiritual paths. Whether or not you are the kind of person to accept Starhawk's opinions as "edicts" for good or ill, most pagan traditions advocate personal responsibility and the necessity of a certain amount of thought (or even reasoning!) before making decisions or forming opinions. I believe that Starhawk herself mentions right there in the article (and in numerous other places in her work, if I remember correctly) that pagans, usually, don't feel the need for a priesthood to interpret between themselves and the divine. So, it shouldn't matter what she says; what you think and do is up to you.
The argument could, I suppose, be made that since she presented this article on Beliefnet all and sundry could think that she does, in fact, speak for all of us. Well, those who can't think for themselves (of any faith or background) will do that anyway no matter who is writing or how they write it. Call yourself a witch and there are a bunch of people out there who will believe that Anton Lavey speaks for you, too. Does he post on Beliefnet? Is he even still alive? Won't matter. Not to them anyway.
Link as requested: http://www.witchvox.com/wren/wn_det
One quick comment before I go and read: I sometimes worry that as Wicca and paganism become more mainstream, a priestly caste of sorts will emerge, and something really key to this spiritual path will be in danger of being lost. I'm all in favor of elders and teachers, but I wouldn't want people to forget that we are all priestesses and priests, and we don't need any outside authorities or official titles to tell us so.
Come to think of it, though, I remember reading somewhere that some people have made a distinction between Pagans (people who honor the gods in this earth-centered way, follow the cycles and celebrate the holydays) and Witches (people who do all of the above, plus work with magic and pursue a wisdom path). Thus, Pagans might seek out Witches for help or counsel. Viewed in that way, it seems to be a matter of affinity, a personality-based choice, perfectly reasonable, and doesn't really bother me. How, though, is this different from the concept of "a priestly caste" that troubles me so?
Hmm.
Maybe it's a matter of remembering that the choice is always in one's own hands; anyone who wants to go deeper is free to do so. Such a person might very well benefit from guidance by experienced others, but is that required? Well, if I pursue this line much further I'll run the risk of getting tangled up in the whole Brit Trad v. Eclectic thing, and I'd really rather not go there. It's too hot. ;)
As to the response: The reason I get pissed at such things, is that we, ass allegedly civilized people, have come up with a set of rules so that we can blow the shit out of one another in a gneteel sort of way that minimizes harm to bystanders. Crazy, sure, but we've got some rules that most agree make the world just a tiny bit nicer. They're specifically flouting those rules. That pisses us off: ther was an aggreed upon way to do this sorts stuff, that was a valid connection that extended over and aorund our fellow humans, enemy and ally alike, and the terrorists are working to destroy that connection. As a pagan, I just see it as a conflict, one with a nasty turn to be sure, and I'd rather see things go back to the genteel way things were (for one reason, we're really very good at that stuff) but I do not subscribe to some overarching "right" way that Yaweh handed down as to how things "ought" to be: these are the tactics that are being used. I'll not condemn the terrorists as "evil" just annoyingly effective enemies.
How do we handle terrorists? Thankfully, that is not my job to decide -- But sending a massive mostly civilian based army (What the hell are National Guard units doing out of country anyway?) would not have been my response. I would much have preferred ferocious surgical strikes, myself. However, we messed up on our intelligence and covert ends over the past 60 years or so and, it would seem, don't have the ability to perform such. I agree with Starhawk on it not being necessary to kill so many civilians. And I know as any student of history knows that when fighting guerrilla warfare it can be hard to tell the difference between a civilian noncombatant and a terrorist/insurgent/rebel. Where do we go from here? I don't know. I don't think it will be painless, though I wish it could. I can only try to continue voting my conscience and my beliefs and lending my support (monetary and otherwise) where I hope it will produce positive results. And, yeah, they are positive results that I would like, which may not correspond to someone else's.
Their job.
That's what they're there for, they're reserve units, to be called up by the nation in the event of need. Back in the day, My unit was to be sent off in our aging M-48 tanks to stem the Soviet Hordes in Germany should the cold war ever heat up.
Post vietnam, one change that was made was to require that NG and reserve units be involved early and often, so as to bring in community involvemnt early on. It was felt that having a large and disconnected-from-the-populace army that could get into wars but not necessarilly through them was not a good idea. So stuff is spread out more.
I have NO sympathy for people who put on the uniform and then don't want to go when the time comes, cause 'they just signed up for the college benefits'. They took an oath: now it's time to fufill that oath. However, I count myself as very lucky that I didn't get called on that lack of sympathy, and I never got to find out if I would be bitching if I got called up.
I think the problem was that, while she did clearly frame this as "one Pagan's opinion," she also was fairly free with the phrase, "as Pagans, we believe..." People who weren't reading closely were therefore in a position to jerk their metaphorical knees and say, "Don't try to tell me what I believe as a Pagan! And don't you dare try to tell other people what I believe! Don't you put words in my mouth like that!"
Then, too, a lot of the negative reactions seemed to boil down to disagreement with her anti-war stance.
As for my response to her article: her essential question seemed to be that old standby, "Can't we all just get along?" From where I sit, the answer remains, and likely always will be, "Sometimes." At least that's better than "No."