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Showing posts from May, 2011

Inter Religious Dialogue - extending good from bad

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Extending the good for the all must certainly include persons of various religious perspectives becoming aware of one another. It must also include the fact of religious persons sharing with one another that we all want to overcome hardship and pain, destruction and violence - in order to extend a generic (but important) truism known as the Golden Rule - that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Too many persons who claim to be Christian in history - and in the middle of the 20th Century in Europe - perpetuated great harm, hurt, and violence upon the Jew(s).  It was a privilege this past week to be a participant (again) in the Oklahoma City Jewish Federation's Yom HaShoah Service.  (Yom HaShoah translates literally - the Day of The Calamity - is a memorial event for what most call the Holocaust - the nuance of terms is important and I believe we will shift over the forthcoming decades to the better term, Shoah, for what has been called The Holocaust.  An appr

http://warresisters.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/not-justice-not-victory-just-another-murder-in-the-name-of-peace/

Something to think about. Not Justice, Not Victory: Just Another Murder in the Name of Peace May 2, 2011 by warresisters “I keep thinking of how awful it was to hear that there were people actually celebrating on 9-11. Now I look at the TV and see the same thing.” -Family member of a man killed in the World Trade Center of September 11, 2001. The reported killing of Osama bin Laden by a CIA operation in Pakistan represents neither justice nor victory, and should be no cause for celebration. It has been nearly ten years since September 11th, 2001. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed. More than six thousand members of the United States military have been killed. Trillions of dollars have been wasted. Tens of thousands of men, women, and children have been detained and imprisoned in the “war on terror.” Torture is now an acceptable component of U.S. foreign policy. Racism is more deeply entrenched in our culture. Eight years to the day (May 1, 2003) after President George

As I write - Osama Bin Laden

As I write - the world is abuzz with tweets and status updates noting the news from Washington D.C. - announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden. There are so many things that could be said about the situation - and many things *are* being said about the situation. I note a few things.  Death - especially violent, murderous, state-sanctioned death - never brings about true "good" for anyone.  It might quell the desire that many have for vengeance - but in its wake comes only the need for someone else to seek an equally great (or even greater) retributive violence - and the cycle, so it seems, never ends. Millions and millions and millions of dollars - and countless hours of persons have invested - for more than a decade - in the pursuit of this one man - and in the process - thousands have died, untold numbers of cities and places and villages have been sacked and rampaged.  Of course there have been numerous other complicating factors, other persons, other agendas - yes, yes.