Howard Zinn, in an essay entitled "Respecting the Holocaust," wrote that to remember what happened to the 6 million Jews served no important purpose unless it aroused indignation, anger, and action against all atrocities, anywhere in the world.
The horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech is just another example of senseless and horrible killing. Joe Scarborough asked Billy Graham's son how a loving God could allow such a thing to happen... Graham's reply was that it was the work of the devil. Well, whatever that may mean - it's obvious that Men are doing this work, whether it is of "the devil" or not it manifests itself through the actions of men. And ultimately, while this may be considered a utopian view by some, it is such actions that we as human beings have to rally against. We have to rage against such acts of cruel inhumanity wherever they occur, against anyone that is perpetrating them. With all of our power, with all of our soul, we must do this.
Many holocaust memorialists abstain from discussing other tragedies, feeling that it "trivializes" what happened to the Jews. It has been used to justify further Israeli expansion into Palestinian land. Politicians use it as a way to motivate the Jewish vote in their favor... but should not the phrase "never again" be the beginning of a new outlook that includes intense moral outrage and calls for action, as opposed to the end of our moral uneasiness?
Since the holocaust we have silently stood by as similar atrocities have been committed against human beings all around the world. Some of these atrocities have occurred due to the actions of our very own United States Government. Our Government did nothing to stop the massacres of Rwanda, nor did it step into feed the starving people of Somalia. There were the victims of Guatemala and El Salvador, where hundreds of thousands of peasants lost their lives to American supported death squads. We started the War in Vietnam, where 58,000 American Soldiers lost their lives and 3 times as many bombs were dropped than in World War II. That’s 1,000 lbs for every man, woman, and child in Vietnam... in order to bring "democracy" and "freedom" to the Vietnamese. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed for nothing. In an estimation provided by the World Health Organization 2 million people die of tuberculosis each year, a disease easily curable and could be whipped out with a small portion of our military budget. This is only our most recent history.
The tragedy at Virginia Tech should leave us all with a deep sense of moral outrage. The noblest thing we can do is act and do all that is in our power to prevent something like this from happening again.
While the massacre at Virginia Tech was not the work of a government, the end result was just the same. Right now American aggression in Iraq is causing, and will continue to cause, suffering on a scale much more massive and appalling than the murderous bastard on that college campus could have ever hoped to do. We do not know what will happen if we leave, but we do know that if we stay there will continue to be more of the same. And the suffering will continue into posterity to a degree that we cannot quantify, due to the use of depleted uranium in that country. We cannot allow this war to continue. We should not allow anymore war to continue... violent, indiscriminate killing of people is wrong. Our national amnesia, as David McCullough called it, regarding our own history, is the reason for the atavistic nature of human events.
It is time to use our immense wealth to help people, not to bomb them. Violence should only be used in the most desperate situations, when all attempts for peace have been exhausted and we are left no choice by our aggressors... Iraq, like its historical counterparts of Vietnam and the Philippines can attest, is not an example of such and we should hold our government accountable. We must change the nature of our foreign policy to reflect our moral indignation. It is time to usher in the new American Century, but it won’t be the economic domination that Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz envisioned – no, it will be the realization that as the worlds superpower we have an obligation to export our humanity to the darkest corners of the globe where it is needed most, not our hate. To respect those who have died at Virginia Tech while also enhancing our own security in a world rife with violence brewed by suffering, our only option is to relieve the pressure – we must do all that is in our power to end human suffering.