General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThese words have been much on my mind of late.
(abridged and condensed)
There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university -- wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities -- and his words are equally true today. He did not refer to towers or to campuses. He admired the splendid beauty of a university, because it was, he said, a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.
I have, therefore, chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived -- and that is the most important topic on earth: peace.
What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war, not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave.
I am talking about genuine peace -- the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living -- and the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace in all time.
Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they can be solved by man.
So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable -- and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly -- by making it seem more manageable and less remote -- we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it and to move irresistibly towards it.
So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal.
- President John F. Kennedy, at American University, 10 June 1963
Trajan
(19,089 posts)So far removed from the public discourse for so long now ....
It has been long since we marched for the sake of universal peace .... a few decades? ....
Far too long, Will ... thanks for this thoughtful post ...
daleanime
(17,796 posts)Zorra
(27,670 posts)1000words
(7,051 posts)And war, she's whore. Don't you know we love her more and more."
-- Ian Astbury
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)Trajan
(19,089 posts)Because it's important ... more important than the other nonsense one finds in DU ..
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...and even at ten, those words impressed me. For all his faults, JFK was a great President--maybe our greatest. (Anyone else would have invaded Cuba during the Missile Crisis, thus triggering the end of the world. JFK, with his cool nerve, did not.) The shit train began on November 22...and has been rolling ever since...
newfie11
(8,159 posts)Whisp
(24,096 posts)[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
bigtree
(86,005 posts). . . every time I read that speech I'm struck by how modern and far-reaching his ideals expressed were, and how tragic that our nation never realized those progressive visions of his. Fate and circumstance took us in opposite directions . . .
kentuck
(111,110 posts)Thanks!
WillyT
(72,631 posts)antigop
(12,778 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)We have a problem, though, in that our government has now been purchased by a few who seem to cherish only their *own* children's futures.
We need to remove these from power and build a society that cherishes the futures of *all* children.