Fwd: RAT Morning Edition

["Christopher Danowski" <oritutu@hotmail.com>]

more articulations that help me feel not so alone--this RAT list has kept me 
sane these past days (well, partially sane)
peace all,
Chris

(This was a message sent by a friend to Morning Edition:)


Dear ATC and Morning Edition:

  Will you please give air time to the many Americans who, though grieved
  and deeply mourning those who  died, are NOT calling for vengeance,
  justice, revenge, increased military spending, and suppression of civil
  liberties?

  Many messages on my e-lists have been highlighting the need to
  understand the causes of this event, as your Alex Chadwick did this
  morning. Through understanding may come the ability to transform our
  lives and our nation in positive, not negative, ways.

  If "nothing will ever be the same after this," let the changes be that
  we dialogue with those who hate us, that the lovers of peace resolve
  never to be silent when calls for holy war (or righteous revenge) are
  spoken in the capitals or in the streets.

  If there need to be changes in "our way of life," let us see that our
  riches and privileges and the wealth of the world go to those in need to
  reduce the hatred that comes from envy.

  If we need to blame governments and people in positions of power, let's
  look at the autocrats around the world who have sucked wealth from their
  people and made militarism their watchword. Osama Bin Laden's first wave
  of angry action was evoked by the rulers of his native land who stand as
  arrogant placeholders for Anglo-American Oil and the Swiss banks behind
  them.

  If we can applaud the selfless, tireless, dust-covered bravery of
  working class firefighters, iron workers, Emergency Service workers, and
  nurses, let's see the similar bravery and heroism of those who work
  every day for education, health care, AIDS relief, women's empowerment,
  sanitation and all the other needs of suffering people everywhere, not
  just in the developing world, but in the poverty pockets of the
  "greatest power on earth." Let's also reward and support those efforts
  in a way commensurate with those who report and broadcast that heroic
  work.

  Years ago, during the time of the Nuclear Freeze efforts, Gene Sharp
  called for a Civilian-Based Defense policy. He was ridiculed at the
  time. What we saw on Tuesday was civilian-based war; increased military
  efforts will not affect it. The trillions we have spent over the years,
  the trillions we have budgeted in the future did not and will not
  protect us. The countless hours of human creativity and brilliance
  expended for military purposes stand revealed as helpless before the
  relentless creativity of a civilian-based ideological and religious
  fervor. We must mobilize a similar fervor for peace, a civilian crusade.

  Why then are we calling for mimicking the futile gestures of the past?
  Let's take that money, that genius, that heroism, and put it where it
  needs to be: in the service of peace.

  I am in despair that once again I find my views (and the views of many
  who attended prayer services and vigils around the world) marginalized,
  unreported, dismissed. If I am naive, I know that I am not alone. My
  Quaker soul is scarred and numb with witnessing coutless deaths and
  immeasureable suffering, some in a shrieking instant of horror, some in
  relentless starvation boycotts, some in grinding daily, unreported
  poverty. The slaughters of innocents happen every day. The great books
  of many religions address this issue of responding with love or with
  anger. In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is instructed by Krishna that we
  must take action to unveil the deepest truths of human existence. At
  that time, Krishna drives the war chariot himself, though not in anger
  or espousing false words of justice. When Jesus was asked about the old
  law of "an eye for an eye," his reply was the essence of my own belief:
  "I come to bring a new law." That's the new law I wish to see, not a
  Congressional resolution of new funds for old remedies, and new
  restrictions to keepdoing what we've been doing futilely in the past.

  Joel Plotkin

  +++++
  PeaceTroupe Mail Lists  [list-sociodrama]  http://PeaceTroupe.org


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