Monday, April 11, 2011

Civil War About Prejudice

The anniversary of the battle called the civil war marks its 150th year since that conflict over prejudice and hate. How far have we come since those fateful days and years of North against South in these good ole United States in 1865? This week marks that war that marked out people of color. Places of civil wars currently in confict come to mind with Lybia, Syria and elsewhere, including Egypt. Genocide occurs every 24 seconds in the world. And, the Holocaust in St. Petersburg, Florida, among other places, shows man's inhumanity to man. War solves little. It witnesses to young people in bad ways. That is hard to believe, for sure, when the cycle of violence and murder that war is rages on in so many places today. If we believed that the life we have for a limited time may end physically, but as physicists teach us - matter and energy are not destroyed - consequently, our material body morphs and changes forms but will always be in some way alive. Back in the mid-sixties in my hometown of Detroit, Michigan, USA, civil unrest sparked a battle of hate and racism. Police brutality toward people of color, and, prejudice, shut down Detroit. Rage stirred as in the civil war of this country. How far have we come? While China, the United Kingdom, among other places follow the U.S. lead in weapons production and sales, when will we ever learn? When, asks the singer? We wonder about the epidemic of violence encompassing and imploding this nation, yet we do little to stop the sales of arms that destroy sacred humans of all those engaged in brutality and bullying, for that matter. If we were to put away this most primitive way of settling conflict we would have done it by now. This cycle continues since we choose to mass produce weapons for wars world-wide. What would America look like if we chose to stop the cycle? Can we imagine another way that works? That witnesses to love of life?

2 comments:

  1. we need to wak up to the cost of war we bear at any price these days?

    protest in solidarity as we did in Vietnam, another sad story.

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  2. We like to be at odds with one another; that's our evil nature.

    ReplyDelete