Rutgers students protest Condoleeza Rice for her involvement in the Iraq War. She stands to make $35,000 off this speaking engagement. Starting wars pays and keeps payin’ and payin’ years into the future.
Looks like a few people are awake and breathing over at University of Minnesota too. This is good news.
“I don’t know that the United States learned anything from it.” Oliver Stone speaking recently on the Vietnam War at Ebertfest.
Here’s one we can’t forget on our People page, whenever we get around to finally making it: Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July.
Credit this photo: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
Mr. Kovic contributed this letter for the American people to the MY HERO website on Sept. 14, 2001.
Dear Friends,
My heart and soul weeps with everyone in America right now. I was deeply saddened by the terrible tragedy that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. I didn’t sleep much again last night, as it’s been for me, and I’m sure so many others since Tuesday. I wonder if we will ever sleep “normally” again? I have thought about it a lot and I am deeply disheartened by the blind patriotism, hatred and desire for revenge that I see growing more and more in this country each day. Resorting to violence and warfare is a great mistake. The painful anguish resulting from this senseless act of violence stirs in all of us a desire for swift retribution. I strongly believe that to move in this direction will lead us into a terrible and disastrous war which we, as a people and a nation, may never recover from. It is a dark and dangerous time in America, and I, in good conscience, will never support such an act of madness! We seem to have learned nothing from Vietnam, and those of us who have come to understand through great suffering the awful waste and deep immorality of war, are not being listened to. Those of us who have found that love and forgiveness are more powerful than hatred are not being heard. We remain invisible, isolated and alone, voices in the wilderness in a country that has truly gone mad. I encourage all of you to raise your voices on behalf of peace and non-violence everywhere. I love this country so much that I don’t want to see it go through the senselessness and agony of war ever again.
With love and a sincere hope for peace!
Ron Kovic
Ron Kovic at an anti-war rally in Los Angeles, California on October 12, 2007.
There is an epidemic of immaturity, rootlessness and lack of commitment among young men today in America. One obvious Catholic manifestation of this condition is the remarkable absence of young males at Mass or at any Church functions.
Unfortunately these men are often attracted to the military to get some sense of purpose in their lives. They make good cannon fodder.
What is the antidote to American militarism which is so dangerous and seductive and attracts so many young men, particularly Catholic men? They should reject service in the armed forces of the neo-pagan American empire. Instead they should be Soldiers of Christ.
Baptist ethicist who pioneered “Just Peacemaking” has died. Here is the story at Christianity Today. Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, was one of CT’s 2004 Books of the Year.
Just before a battle with the Gauls at Borbetomagus, Saint Martin of Tours (316-397), then a military officer, determined that his faith in Christ prohibited him from fighting, saying, “I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.” He was charged with cowardice and jailed. In response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops.
This ten-minute video talk is the fifth part in a series of Lenten reflections by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.
CHRISTIAN UNJUST/JUST WAR MORAL THEORY
“The effort one is obliged to make in order to acquire moral certainty that an action is morally permissible is to be measured by the importance of the action itself and the consequences which can be reasonably anticipated. If the life of a neighbor is liable to be imperiled by actions of ours, we must choose the safest course of action so as to avoid this evil effect. War with its dire consequences can never be waged on the grounds of probable right.” —Rev. Bernard Haring, C.SS.R., THE LAW OF CHRIST, Vol I, Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur (1960)
Good for these veterans. From the website groundoperations.net:
Our warriors are coming home from battle. They face a daunting transition back to civilian life, marked by unemployment, prescription drug addiction and astronomical suicide rates. They need a new mission. Simultaneously, we are losing half of American farmers to retirement and the USDA is calling for one million new farmers to fill the gap. Agriculture’s problem is the veterans’ solution.
“Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farmfields” champions combat vets who are rebuilding their own lives as organic farmers & ranchers and revitalizing their communities with access to local, affordable, fresh, healthy food. These heroes blow the lid off stereotypes and you’ll be rooting for them all the way to your farmers market.
America needs a million new farmers. Veterans want the job!
This ten-minute video talk is the second part in a series of Lenten reflections by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.
“It is all but impossible to get a person to see a truth if his or her livelihood or status, or even just comfort, depends on him or her not seeing that truth.” — Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave / When first we practise to deceive!” Marmion, Walter Scott
Archibald Baxter, Catholic Conscientious Objector from New Zealand
From Lest We Forget:
Archibald Baxter was a hard working farmer, Catholic and pacifist. In 1915, when he was 33, Baxter was arrested, sent to prison, then as one of 14 conscientious objectors, shipped under guard to France where he was forced to the front line against his will. Punished to the limits of his physical and mental endurance, Baxter was stripped of all dignity, beaten, starved and placed directly in the line of fire. Field Punishment No.1, which Baxter and his fellow conscientious objectors received regularly, included ‘the crucifixion’, in which they were tied to a post, their hands, knees and feet bound and held in this position for up to four hours a day. In later life Baxter published We Will Not Cease, an autobiography which recounted his experiences as a pacifist.
