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Peace Ramblings......
Liberty
"This is true liberty: when
freeborn men, given to
associate, socialize & advise,
may speak free. Which he
who can & will deserves
high praise. Who neither
can nor will may hold his peace."
The following is my response to the e-mail -- on this
day received, via the miracle of technology, in this
fine land - which appears upon my screen. Having
opened its contents of multiple "To:"'s, and a
paragraph of "CC:"'s, I scan the names and cull a few
resonance's from a distant past. The subject: Mary
Moody's "Food, not bombs." Wrom: UFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMBIP
recall (if I am to trust my father's word), advocated
in excess, over a quarter century ago (in my parents
kitchen), the dropping of 'atomic bombs on Cuba.
Thus prompting the surgical trimming of another limb
on the genealogical tree. The silence of the years,
now somewhat traversed, with a third person's voice on
a subject most dear: "Food, not bombs."
The context of Ms. Moody's message, the impending, and
her ominous awareness of war. And in her text
suggests a method to impress our leadership with
alternatives. "Food, not bombs". And who could
disagree with that. And the gesture is genuine and
sincere. And we thank Mary for that. For in these
times, gestures of peace are rare and precious few,
for the hounds of war like wolves are baying loud, it
takes a trumpet like Gabriel's horn to be over heard.
And Mary is a humble person, and we respect her for
that too is a virtue. But another admonition from
that great compendium, is "To beat one's swords into
plough shares." And to beat into is not a tepid
gesture. A pacifist women in Ireland yesterday beat a
warplane with a hammer doing significant damage, and
others inspired by the admonition and her example,
repeated the act the next day. And the New Testament,
the new covenant, the first book, the Sermon on the
Mount, not the old testament, the old covenant of how
to inherit the promised land, by conquest and
slaughter. We supposedly have progressed in our
learning and reading in the book of life, "For ye have
heard it said of old, that thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. But I say unto you, thou shalt
love thine enemies.." And he goes on at quite some
length to delineate the distinctions between what you
have heard said, but what I say now. The Golden Rule,
first enunciated by Confucius 500 years before Christ,
"likening oneself to others", not doing to others
what we would not from them. Or in Christ's phrasing:
"Do unto others what you would want them to do unto
you."
But since the 'the cold war' we have as a nation, been
locked into massive military expenditures over
generations of time, fulfilling Eisenhower's ominous
warning of the "military industrial complex." And the
lesson of Vietnam seems to have been lost. That might
alone does not make right, and will not prevail over
time unless it doth with right entwine.
The urgency of the time calls for a response to avert
the most serious disastrous effects of benighted and
ill chosen leadership, and the policies they pursue.
The principles of this leadership are demonstrably
antithetical to species survival on a global scale.
What America does affects the whole world in an
instant of cognition. And this cognition perceives a
gross disjunction with what is acceptable by the
People not only of this land, but of the World at
large. The Universe of Rational Discourse.
The urgency of the time calls for the sustained and
concentrated effort of maximum assertion. If you are
tepid, your contribution will be small. But even
Milton allowed that there were those who simply choose
to witness. But I say, be a clarion, sound your horn
Gabriel, poets compose, musicians play and sing psalms
of peace. Inform yourself beyond the predigested and
caloricly modified sound bits of
corporate/state/military fabrication. Avail
yourselves of Internet alternative opinion options.
There are a multiplicity of organizations that come
together under the general umbrella of Peace and
Justice; of people, health, clean air and water and
safety. Write to your legislators, to your editors,
talk radio. Big demonstrations are expected on the
15th and 16th of this month. Raise a din to counter
the treadmill spin of the obfuscators, back- peddlers,
flap-doodlers, charlatans, shuck-an-jivers,
sham-an-skamers, Quakenbushes and Bush whackers above
all. America -- you have been bushwhacked, by a
crony class of capital asses And the policies they
pursue are absurd and pose an injurious consequence
down the road. At least let the world know, that this
war is not the wish or will of the American People,
"Not in our Name'. Our greatest fear, "that we're all
just one too many mornings and a thousand miles
behind." Peace
Uncle Carl 3/5/2003
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Lynn
