Regarding Violence

"Solving these problems will require changes in government policy; it will also require changes in hearts and minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby. But I also believe that when a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he thinks somebody disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do we need to punish that man for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there's a hole in his heart, one that government programs alone may not be able to repair."
-- Barack Obama; The Audacity of Hope; page 215.

A person who was reportedly a former graduate student kills six people at Northern Illinois University before killing himself, in yet another example of the price our society is paying for the anger and hatred that has infected our culture. We have had examples of such ugly violence through the recent decades, and certainly everything cannot be blamed on the Bush-Cheney administration. Yet it has to be said that we have an administration that has set a tone of paranoia, fear, and violence; and a president who delights in the use of violence, bloodshed and death to solve problems.

I think that both of the democratc candidates -- Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- have solid histories of working to empower families and communities, in a way that helps to reduce the conditions that contribute to the tragic violence in homes, schools, and in the streets of our towns and cities. I support Barack Obama's run for the presidency, but I have great respect for the work that Hillary Clinton has done in this area over the years.

The differences between the democratic and republican parties is stark, indeed. And no matter who our nominee is, I hope that we can unite behind him or her, because the outcome of the November election will help to determine the course our nation will take. Few phrases are more revealing that John McCain's saying that our nation will remain in Iraq for another 100 years, and that he has to be honest in saying there will be more wars in the upcoming years.

Sad to say, if he is elected, I believe that war will spread. But we cannot close our eyes to the fact that we cannot engage in wars of aggression in Iraq, and have tranquillity. It is not only that the Bush-Cheney policy makes the United States hated -- though it does -- and that these policies will make us a target of "others." It is because the national leaders have been calling upon what Senator Robert Kennedy called "the darker impulses of American life."

The violence that took place in that university shocks us, yet it is the same type of horrible event which takes place far too frequently in the war zones that Bush and Cheney have created. In order to change our society at home, we need to make changes in our system of values. In his most important speech, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., said:

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, property motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. ...

"A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. ...

"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. ..." (A Time to Break Silence"; April 4, 1967)

6 killed, and 15 wounded. And then person then suicided on stage.

In a lecture hall on a university. Unreal.

I hate the thought of possible failure to stop it.

Endorsing torture. Another top down example.