August 4, 2006
by Steve Osborn

If I was not a religious man, I would be saying prayers for the eviscerated children, for the widows dying trying to protect what is left of their home and family, for the aged and infirm, for the victims of the wholesale slaughter that is going on in so many places in the Middle East; for the destroyed means of livelihood, the burned fields and forests, sunken boats, contaminated air and water, dead fish and game, herds and crops, for the thousands locked away in gulags for years of unspeakable cruelty and deprivation.

However, I am a religious man, so I believe that those poor unfortunates will hopefully be met somewhere, healed in body and soul as it were and perhaps reunited with those they were so cruelly separated from on this side. I think this will happen without my prayers, just because it is a good and loving thing to happen.

I believe that God has evolved us here on earth, He, She, or It, has seen that we developed a big brain, to learn from our experiences and to advance from barbaric to civilized behavior. We have the inherent ability to have empathy and compassion. We have recorded our history so we can learn from it. We read of the barbarities practiced during the crusades, of Richard the Lion-Heart telling his minions, who said Jerusalem was full of Muslims, Jews and Christians, "Kill them all and let God sort them out." We have the history of the "Holy" Inquisition and the burning to death of thousands for the crime of heresy, which usually meant any disagreement with the Roman Church. More recently, there were pogroms, the Nazi "final solution," the brutalities of their occupation of European countries and the blood spilled by the oppressed peoples fighting back against overwhelming force by whatever means they could find. Vietnam seems another forgotten lesson, leaving legions of the dead. The list goes on. Russian gulags were places of horror which the world, and the former Soviet Union rejoiced when they were closed.

Every time, we say we have learned from history and that humanity has advanced beyond such barbarity. Yet, when I look about me, when I read my paper or look at the computer screen, I see us descending into a pit of uncaring cruelty in which the milk of human kindness has soured, then soaked into the polluted soil. As a nuclear veteran, I shudder with horror as I listen to blithe plans to nuke Iran, or any other place on earth. We should have learned more from Hiroshima and Nagasaki than that unthinkable horror can lead to surrender.

I believe we have these God given brains and emotions to make a better world, to take care of the planet, to advance the human condition. I don't think we have evolved just to learn out how to increase our bottom line at the expense of humanity and the planet itself. I think we have evolved to learn to use our brains to better ourselves and our fellow man. I think within that brain, we have the capacity to feel and to care, but somehow, it has been walled off.

(Article Continues Below)

I listen to the hypocrisy of our government officials on all sides who say such things as there is no sense in stopping the slaughter of innocents until a final solution to peace in the Middle-East can be implemented. That is a goal which has been defeated for over a thousand years. Why can't we stop the killing and sit down and talk? Any damned fool with a rifle can kill someone. With intelligence and empathy, perhaps we can understand the feelings and concerns of both sides and come to an agreement. Perhaps not perfect, but an agreement none-the-less. Then, the farmer can till his field without fearing a fighter plane, the school child can concentrate on learning without fearing his school may be blown up, mothers could tend their families and go to market without fear and the doctor can operate without finding himself in a pile of smoking rubble. Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Darfur; each of them and many more is a charnel house, whose survivors have no hope and so, in desperation, no fear to die. Thus is "terrorism" fostered. One man's terrorist is often another man's patriotic hero.

Hundreds of billions of Dollars, Eruos, Yuan, Rubles and other currencies are spent every year to buy weapons, to develop newer and deadlier weapons, to test them in new fields of war because the weapons makers know they have the highest profit margin of any business except perhaps the oil industry, and the market never dries up as long as hate and violence rules.

What would happen if most, if not all, of those "swords and spears" were turned into "plowshares and pruning hooks?" Imagine those billions going into education, housing, medical research and care, clean water, sewage systems. How much unrest would we have if the peoples of the world could work for themselves and their families, free of poverty, disease, hunger and fear of death by warfare?

I'm glad that I am not God, for I would be tempted, as I watch what is going on, to decide the experiment was over and throw away the Petrie dish. However, He seems content to let the experiment continue and see if we can advance toward a moral and ethical species. What do you think? It will take a world of good will and hard work to make the change. Stopping the killing would be a good start. Trying to save the planet from global warming, pollution and the spread of nuclear and Depleted Uranium pollution wouldn't hurt either.

If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to the Free Populist Party Newsletter

     click here

Stephen M. Osborn [send him email] is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest. He is an "Atomic Vet." (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956, ) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor, writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist.