Christian,
Thank you for putting into words what many of us feel. I am a few years you
senior but share many of your memories. My formative years were full of
pictures of death and destruction: Friends and relatives with numbers
tattooed on their forearms; Emmett Till hanging from a tree; Children only
slightly older than myself being brutalized by adults for trying to get an
education; The Saigon Chief of Police summarily executing a suspected Viet
Minh with his pistol, right in the middle of the street. I have also come to
know the ravages of war and oppression personally.

I gladly suffered Bull Connors' fire hoses in Birmingham and Jim Clark's
attack dogs in Selma. I sang with the others, "I ain't afraid of your jail,
no, cause I want my freedom." I was jailed in Birmingham Alabama and proudly
my served my time during a period of time when that institution also housed
the Reverend Martin Luther King.

I was not once but three times within yards of bus bombing in Jerusalem. I
saw bodies blown apart. I helped carry victims to safety; some died in my
arms. This happened to me on my way to work as a hospital chaplain, so what
started as a bad day, did not get better. More than once have I been called
upon to tell a mother that her child was dead. I would spare anyone that
experience.

War and suffering are not glorious. War is brutal. War brings suffering and
nothing else. War will replace one evil with another.

I have seen and fought oppression on three continents. The systematic
oppression of people by governments is a form of terrorism no less and
possibly more harmful than anything Al Qidah, the PLO, the IRA or
Bader-Meinhoff ever dreamed of. If the Israelis live in fear of bombs and
bombers, do not he Palestinians live in equal fear of tanks and soldiers? Do
not the Basques, the Tutsi and indigenous peoples all over the world have a
right to be free of fear from their political leaders.

Disagreeing with someone or some action taken by someone does not justify
violence. If we took the actions of governments and applied them to
individuals, we would jail those individuals. You cannot blow up a bus
because I walked by your place of worship. You cannot blow up an apartment
complex because someone of my race blew up your bus.

Tit for tat is ludicrous after we have forgotten who first titted and who
first tatted? By going to war, we set ourselves up for failure. Setting off
a new and bigger cycle of action and reaction, attack and retaliation, pain
and suffering will not make the world safe.

Recognizing that all people have a right to freedom will make the world safe
and prosperous. We lionize individuals that have assumed more wealth or
power over others than is good for them. We accept the correctness of the
situation that some have and some have not. This is root cause of
oppression.

Satisfied people do not make revolutions. Grass root movements start where
the people can be convinced that they are not getting what they deserve.
Oppressors have historically used that dissatisfaction to stir up racial
animus, nationalist fervor and xenophobia. This keeps the oppressors in
power and the world on the brink of war.

We must satisfy the people of the world. We must help them achieve freedom;
freedom from hunger; freedom from fear; freedom from war; freedom from
oppression; freedom from poverty; freedom from ignorance. This will stop
war, nothing else will.

Work for Peace

The opinions expressed herein, whether mildly held opinions or hardcore
opinions are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
Yosef Rosenblatt

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