Ninety Lives … For What They’re Worth

(excerpt):Since when do traditional American values speak only for American citizens? Since when do our philosophies declare all men created equal, with Americans just a little more equal than all the rest? Since when does Jesus love the little children of the world, especially American children? (excerpt): News analysts have two jobs, to both reflect and create public attitude. This Sunday’s weekly news roundup created and reflected total American indifference to the suffering of human beings in the Middle East. Our otherwise distinguished news analysts were so busy interrupting each other over the fall of DeLay and the immigration gridlock in Congress that they couldn’t spare a moment to mention the fact that last week, the equivalent of a whole Shiite village was blown to hell by terrorists, as they gathered to pray to the very same God America prays to, even if we call Him by a different name. (excerpt):Americans claim to have democratically decided to throw $500 billion of our hard-earned taxpayers’-dollars—not to mention our darling children and grandchildren—toward the goal of bestowing freedom and democracy upon our beloved Iraqi friends. Or has a tiny crackpot group of neocon warmongers managed to misuse our democratic processes in order to herd American citizens around like sheep? Perhaps this nutty fringe group of extremists think that when Iraq is safely “democratized,” then they can similarly ride herd on the Iraqis in order to commandeer their oil. (Excerpt): If not, if we so love the Iraqis, then why couldn’t we come up with just one silent moment of programming time during three hours of major-network weekly news roundups to show the minimum of respect for the ninety murdered souls on whose behalf we’re supposedly fighting and dying? Continue reading

Peacemakers Who (Really) Keep the Peace

(Excerpt): Dictionaries offer two definitions of “peacemaker”: someone who settles disputes and problems by negotiating and mediating, and a second kind of “Peacemaker”—a Colt single-action revolver popular during the late nineteenth century. (Excerpt): American voters keeps bringin’ on the gunslinger version of peacemaker—belligerent, reactionary leaders who turn taxpayers’ pockets inside-out to fund their immense arsenals, endless wars, unwieldy spy bureaucracies, and sprawling armed forces, who make no one’s day–and untold enemies–with their cocky boy-cowboy approaches to diplomacy. I want new leadership that will keep the peace, not disturb it. (Excerpt:) We don’t need any more moral bankrobbers who stare down imagined enemies at the point of a gun. We need spiritual political leadership in the mold of Gandhi, Mandela, and King, peacemakers with faith in the power of love, and the moral courage necessary to bring the world together, who will establish a cabinet-level Department of Peace, work to keep our nation in harmony with all God’s children in every nation, and help secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves, our posterity, and all mankind. Yippee-ki-yay, brother. Continue reading