Thursday, August 11, 2011

Why I Take To The Streets For Peace

As a 66 year old Jewish man, I know well the horrors of Nazi Germany, having listened to and read extensively first hand accounts of it from Holocaust survivors and many others who were involved. Yet it all began with just one man in a beer hall, a homicidal maniac, who capitalized on Germany's financial collapse to rise to power. And he did it while most people were silent. Had Germans raised their voices to stop Hitler, they could have prevented the tidal wave of blood that would nearly drown all of humanity.

In the name of peace, America is armed to the teeth. It spends more on "defense" than the rest of the world combined. And no surprise, when a nation's military machine is unleashed to produce at full capacity for decades, war becomes that nation's primary objective. The U.S. is now so immersed in wars, that it can't get enough soldiers to fight them without a draft. So for the 1st time in its history it pays "contractors," which are highly experienced mercenaries who for premium prices will help fight its wars.

In America's silence, this war machine has spiraled out of control. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and drug wars in Mexico, Columbia and Brazil and U.S. "Kill-Capture" squads unleashed in 70 nations and more to come. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is crumbling, in part drained morally and financially by all the wars. Yet across America just a handful of people are speaking out and I'm proud to be one of them. As of this writing, I've held 282 candlelight vigils, one nearly every Wednesday since January, 2006 to remember the wars' many victims. http://candlelightvigils.blogspot.com/.

Few Germans including Jews ever envisioned what could happen to them. But the fact is it could happen anyplace where troubles abound and extremists capitalize on those troubles while people of conscience are silent.

Dick

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