Good War? Being an address to the Schenectady Neighbors for Peace for the Annual Commemoration of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki By Rev. Valerie Mapstone Ackerman August 4, 2013 Central Park It was a Good War. We were the victims. Faultless. Trying to stop the scourge of empire-building. It was The Good War. We were making the world safe for democracy. Transitioning from old world powers to new world powers. There were interests to be carved up. It was Good to be at War. We were victims and victims can do what must be done to right the wrong. We were the good guys in green helmets stopping the slanty-eyed enemy and the bellicose little mustachioed man. Of course none of this is exactly true. American historian Thomas A. Bailey, a proponent of the Good War theory, wrote Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly deceived the American people during the period before Pearl Harbor…. He was like the physician who must tell the patient lies for the patient’s own good…. The country was overwhelmingly non-interventionist to the very day of Pearl Harbor, and an overt attempt to lead the people into war would have resulted in certain failure and an almost certain ousting of Roosevelt in 1940, with a complete defeat of his ultimate aims…. Bailey continues… A president who cannot entrust the people with the truth betrays a certain lack of faith in the basic tenets of democracy. But because the masses are notoriously shortsighted and generally cannot see danger until it is at their throats, our statesmen are forced to deceive them into an awareness of their own long-run interests. This is clearly what Roosevelt had to do, and who shall say that posterity will not thank him for it? Who shall not thank him for it? Me. Count me among those who do not thank him for it. If you are standing here today, I need NOT try to convince you of the BAD-ness of war. You already drew that conclusion. The problem is that a critical mass of Americans have not drawn the same conclusion. Too many either know nothing of history or choose not to embrace anything beyond the mythology we CALL history New history is being made today. Do we understand it? Are we allowing ourselves to be sucked into a narrative made by interests who believe that “Great Men” will decide our fate? Do we accept lies told to us by politicians we gleefully elect so that we need NOT feel the weight of history? What mythology are we creating today to make it safe for our politicians and our pundits, our reporters and our professors to tell us what we want to hear? Are we so in love with our patriotism that we will refuse to know our horrible terrible terroristic history our terroristic present and our terroristic future? Do we protect the myth or do we prevent more violence? We are here to say atomic bombing was a bridge too far, but what methodology of killing WILL we accept? The killing methodologies are upon us: Drones kill by remote control. Disaster capitalism kills through falsely reasoned war which enriches the defense contractors, killing or imprisoning the poor, the ill, the homeless, the mentally ravaged, creating billions of permanently impoverished to serve the needs and the whims of the unfathomably rich. The surveillance state lulls us into slumber, whispering reassurances: “only the bad guys need worry” and tricks us into believing that the “good guys” will use their power justly. If we accept the new paradigm of vigilance and financially justified violence, then we are accepting the mythology that led to this very commemoration today: We needed Pearl Harbor so that we could enter the war and we needed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to solidify our domination. Wielding power like no other nation-state has ever wielded power, the United States of America remains the ONLY nation to ever unleash the ultimate killing machinery. Truman knew that the war was already over. He knew surrender was just days away. He knew that the killing could stop. But he dropped the bomb anyway. Not once, but twice. TWICE he unleashed the power of the atom, the best that science could offer, to inflict unbelievable mass destruction. In so doing, he decided that terror would be the default position not only for the United States of America, but for the world. Choices have consequences. Few of us here today are Americans by choice. Most of us were born here because our parents were born here. We have an immigrant or two, sons and daughters of immigrants. But whether American by choice or chance, AS Americas we have still more choices to make. Do we live in the mythology of greatness and goodness, telling ourselves pretty little lies to soften our daily existence? Or do we face reality, bear the responsibility that our history demands? Do we CHOOSE to forget and ASSUME we are forgiven? Or Do we resist, work endlessly to prevent each new step toward a world ruled by terror and surveillance? In July of 1838 in an address to the students of Harvard Divinity School, Ralph Waldo Emerson exhorted the gathered elite white men to preach from their life experience. He said The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life, — life passed through the fire of thought. One hundred seventy-five years have passed since that refulgent summer. And the words still ring true today, for me, the preacher But Emerson’s words can have a power beyond his ornately woven address all those years ago… What would it be like if WE make his words a mantra, a guidepost, a solemn vow: we WILL know our history and we WILL pass our lives through the fire of thought. We must take with us the fiery truth of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must pass that true fire through the even more powerful fire of critical thought. And then from that crucible, each one of us, MUST deal out to the people a compassionate and powerful fury at injustice. We came here today as the RESISTORS, spreading joy and compassion, lovingkindness and tough love. We continue to know the truth no matter how many ways Fox News tries to distort reality. We know it is OUR responsibility to set aside the myth of Good Wars. We are empowered by the secret weapon that science has yet to understand and cannot fully stamp out. WE have the power of love beyond measure, the power to look into the eyes and into the hearts of our fellow humans and see there, not an enemy to be reviled, but a sister to be embraced. Uncompromising hard-won and fearless love is the only antidote to war without end. It is the only antidote to the mythology of “Good Wars” MAY WE MAKE lLOVE AND JUSTICE OUR NEW REALITY.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 02:21:20 +0000
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