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Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Thursday, November 18, 2004
There is a move afoot to raise the Federal debt ceiling some 800 billion dollars to, I believe, about 8.1 trillion dollars
That is about eight thousand billion dollars, or, around $30,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. The following words are interesting in light of this news:
"I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared."
The author? Thomas Jefferson.
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Wednesday, November 17, 2004
The following story is out from the Associated Press today:
"MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is developing a new form of nuclear missile...ws reports have also said Russia is believed to be developing a next-generation heavy nuclear missile that could carry up to 10 nuclear warheads weighing a total of 4.4 tons, compared with the Topol-M's 1.32-ton combat payload...The missiles have a range of about 6,000 miles and reportedly can maneuver in ways that are difficult to detect...Earlier this year, a senior Defense Ministry official was quoted as telling news agencies that Russia had developed a weapon that could make the United States' proposed missile-defense system useless. Details were not given, but military analysts said the claimed new weapon could be a hypersonic cruise missile or maneuverable ballistic missile warheads."
There is the illusion that if we kill all the terrorists the world will be at peace. But illusion is exactly what it is. So long as we value power over love, others will want our power, and the world will never be safe. Russia is not building a 10-warhead maneuverable missile to impress terrorists with hand-held grenade launchers and molotov cocktails. They are building it to impress us, and to lessen their own fear of us. The world seeks security through military power. We must all work toward a security based on love, for that, I believe, is the only source from which it will ever come.
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Monday, November 15, 2004
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
This is a powerful paragraph that Emerson wrote on nonviolence, and specifically on the principle of turning the other cheek:
"But no man, it may be presumed, ever embraced the cause of peace and philanthropy for the sole end and satisfaction of being plundered and slain. A man does not come the length of the spirit of martyrdom without some active purpose, some equal motive, some flaming love. If you have a nation of men who have risen to that height of moral cultivation that they will not declare war or carry arms, for they have not so much madness left in their brains, you have a nation of lovers, of benefactors, of true, great and able men. Let me know more of that nation; I shall not find them defenseless, with idle hands springing at their sides. I shall find them men of love, honor, and truth; men of an immense industry; men whose influence is felt to the end of the earth; men whose very look and voice carry the sentence of honor and shame; and all forces yield to their energy and persuasion. Whenever we see the doctrine of peace embraced by a nation, we may be assured it will not be one that invites injury; but one, on the contrary, which has a friend in every man, even of the violent and base; one against which no weapon can prosper; one which is looked upon as the asylum of the human race and has the tears and blessings of mankind." (From his essay, "War")
While we were taught Emerson in high school his ideas are not considered now. I would be laughed at if I ran a political campaign on this basis. But no nation that calls itself great can afford to deny its great thinkers. We must keep Emerson close to our hearts, even as we fight. We must remain committed to this question of how we, and the rest of the world, end the insanity of violence through war once and for all for everyone.
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Monday, November 15, 2004
This is a little of what gandhi had to say on the matter:
"nonviolence is a weapon of the strong. With the weak it might easily be hypocrisy. ...My daily experience, as of those who are working with me, is that every problem lends itself to solution if we are determined to make the law of truth and nonviolence the law of life...The more I work at this law the more I feel the delight in life, the delight in the scheme of this universe. It gives me a peace and a meaning of the mysteries of nature that I have no power to describe."
(from "My Faith in Nonviolence," 1930)
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Sunday, November 14, 2004
Sunday, November 14, 2004
"The bombing of civilian centers was initiated by the Germans and adopted by the Japanese. To it, the Allies responded in kind - as it turned out, with greater effectiveness - and they were morally justified in doing so."
Albert Einstein, November, 1947
You may find it interesting that Einstein would have found any act of violence morally justified, or that I would quote him saying so. I was speaking today to a friend who is priest in Rome, about the issue of whether war or violence is ever justified. He reminded me that Jesus said we must turn the other cheek, but that he also said we must love our neigbor as ourselves, and that before we can love our neignbor we have to love ourselves. Part of loving ourselves means defending oneself - it means an unwillingness to allow others to treat us badly.
Then we have the issue of Gandhi and Martin Luther King and their advocacy of non-violence. And the fact that it worked.
We are certainly not the first to have grappled with all of these questions. But we must strive to be the generation that comes up with answers.
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Saturday, November 13, 2004
"Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must."
Albert Einstein, Statement at the Fifth Nobel Anniversary Dinner
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Friday, November 12, 2004
"I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people on earth would be killed, but enough men capable of thinking, and enough books, would be left to start out again, and civilization would be restored."
Albert Einstein, from "Atomic War or Peace," Atlantic Monthly, Novmebr, 1945
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