I can not really answer that question for I could never have the arrogance to believe I could speak for them. I can only tell you what their teachings made me believe. The "ordinary" person in the world have little opportunities to ponder this question. We here who kill with regularity have already answered the question. Our government kills with impunity and children are of no consequence. In that context the phony "debate" about guns smells to high heaven. How can anyone participate in this sham? The morality of this country comes from its people. The very people that elected the Bush administration and went along with his murders. Why do I even have to say this? Is it I who is insane? If so, then insanity is defined by the masses and no other standard. I have lived almost 77 years now and I am ashamed it took me this long to understand how very sick we are. The news and the social media are full of something short of the outrage the present situation calls for. May I simply remind you that the people in Eastern Europe lived through one of the most repressive regimes imaginable in modern times and they did not resort to violence and killing and they are now free of that particular oppression. Are you with me yet? Please read on for there is more to this.
We on the "left" in the USA are a peculiar group. I feel I can say that because I worked in France for years, as well as Germany, Italy and Poland. My Postdoctoral training was in Israel for two years. In Israel guns were everywhere. I picked up young hitch hikers (male and female) with their Uzis all the time. It gave me the creeps but I was learning another culture and I kept quiet. Today I see the result. It makes me sick! In Europe on the other hand there were the armed soldiers in Frankfurt airport and beyond that I don't recall weapons at all. I know that the Germans were hunters as well as the French but there was so little evidence in their homes and in their culture.
For years we have enjoyed the French film festival in March in Richmond. There was some violence. but there was also a human and soft quality to what they showed us.
I was very young during WWII and the things the Nazis did seemed to justify all the violence it took to subdue them. Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific were less clear until later. The Bomb changed things forever and you know this.
I came back from my postdoc training in Israel in 1965 because of Vietnam. I became an activist, a socialist, and a pacifist from that time on.
If you want to understand this better read my past diaries for there are very many. Maybe I should do a book?
No, my purpose today is to question as I always do. I question the sincerity if the reaction to the recent slaughter and the vows to do something about it. n Here is my basis for questioning it.
This country was built on genocide. It was built on violence of all kinds. Against the Native peoples, against the slaves, against the poor people who came and were exploited as workers to make others rich.
We have controlled the post colonial world and exploited it ruining the environment and the future of generations to come. We develop and sell weapons of all kinds and use them to intimidate other countries in the world.
We thrive on violence and now it has spilled over and tainted our nest. The response actually sickens me in the context of what I have just written. Maybe it is I who is sick? Maybe MLK and Ghandi were also sick? If so I will die with this sickness. Having been trained to kill by our government I have a stain on my soul I will never erase. I am so glad I never used that training. But it makes me a part of the evil that we are as a Nation. Yes I said "evil" and I mean it. The only way we avoid evil is through non-violence. Therefore we are a deeply evil nation.