A message from Jon Lockert, Alaskans for Peace & Justice

[Blue_In_AK]

First, let me say HullBoss and I saw this movie yesterday afternoon, and I agree completely with Jon's comments here. I urge all of you to see this great documentary.

"The documentary film Why We Fight is showing at the Fireweed theater right now and you can bet it won't be there long. It is a look at our addiction to militaristic solutions to our problems of how to stay on top. The following link gives some info on the movie.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/why-we-fight.shtml

"One of the most powerful parts of the movie is the famous Eisenhower farewell speech where he warned of the military-industrial complex. Hearing this speech made me think of the Rev. Michael Burke's comments at the forum on the Iraq war last week. Both pointed out the grave spiritual risk to us of relying on killing of real and imagined enemies to solve our problems. Humans have no greater power than the power to take the life of others. Of course, with each life taken, we also gravely injure families, neighborhoods, communities, nations and ultimately ourselves. This is why developing an ever more powerful killing machine (the armed forces) is so corrupting. When we have this much power, someone is going to want to use it. And, there is so much money to be made in refining and expanding the machine because when is there ever enough "defense."

"I urge everyone to see the film and have a discussion about what it tells us about ourselves. I believe we are witnessing an enormous spiritual dilemma that we are participating in either thru action or inaction. If we so choose, we are privileged to participate in one of the great tests of our humanity and our nationhood. Do we choose to do violence to others and ultimately ourselves because we don't have all that we want? Or, do we grasp that resorting to violence is often our giving up on the potential in ourselves and others to find solutions.

"Our greed and impatience and cynicism about possibilities will surely be our downfall. Or, do we confront the truth about ourselves and our lust for power and riches that excuses our violence. When will we understand that the power we have to destroy lives could instead be used to enhance lives? As Garrison Keilor said during an Easter broadcast a couple of years ago, "and we call ourselves a Christian nation." The great spiritual traditions have all pointed us toward the light. When will we seek the light in earnest and when will we stop cursing the "other" and pray the light may shine more brightly in all souls?

"As always I welcome your feedback. It is late on Saturday night and I am struggling to understand all that I see and feel. I want to write a longer piece on this topic and I want your help with how to state it more clearly and succinctly without sounding preachy. Excuse any excessive pontificating and give me some suggestions on how to reach out to our neighbors on this critical topic. By the way, thanks for reading this. Knowing some of you made it all the way down here makes it all worthwhile.

"The road is long and steep but where else are you going to go? Who ever told you that life would be a downhill coast? We only live once so let's see how high up on this mountain we can go, together. I believe the air, the view, and most of all, the company, will be worth it."