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There are two documents here: a letter to Senator Joe Lieberman and a cover letter
to those receiving "CC"s.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Daniel B. Zwickel
Pittsburg, California
PeaceHost.net/PacifistNation.net
Daniel Beck Abrahamson Zwickel-Wicks
2150 Goff Avenue
Pittsburg-by-the-Delta, California (94565)
Daniel@PeaceHost.net
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Supervisors Joe Canciamilla & Mark DeSaulnier
Assemblyman Tom Torlekson
Governor Gray Davis, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante
Representatives George Miller, Pete Stark & Ellen Tauscher
Senators Barbara Boxer & Dianne Feinstein
Vice President Al Gore
President Bill Clinton
October 2, 2000
Dear Public Servants,
I
present this cover letter to you (with a cc to Sen. Lieberman) with the
knowledge of how things work. Perhaps one or two of you will actually read this
letter, and even the full letter to follow. This document will otherwise be read (or
perused)by staff persons and elicit form responses. Perhaps it will be tallied as
check marks (voter a Democrat; voter Jewish; voter against capital punishment; voter a
pacifist.) I'll accept that.
But
I must serve notice that the issues I present here cannot be summarily
dismissed. I send you a cc of my letter to Sen. Lieberman because I am one of your
constituents. I'm part of your job. I voted for nearly every one of you and I help
pay your salary As a single voter I maybe of relative insignificance, but pacifism is
a force to be reckoned with. You owe it to yourself and to the rest of your
constituents to give it deep and serious thought.
You may take private comfort in perceiving pacifism to be part of a fringe
element but you will be wrong. It is at the heart of our most fundamental choice:
between life and death, between creation and destruction. It is in how you view the
world and relate to it; in how you express your relationship to the divine and whether
or not your professed beliefs are integral to the way you live your life. Those of you
fortunate to have known my parents, Jean and Abraham, need no explanation. The rest of
you would do well to study their lives and how they intersected with those of the likes
of James Farmer, Dorothy Day and C,sar Chavez (you may do so by reading:
Abe & Jean's Life & Times.)
And take some time, or at least assign a staffer to visit
www.PacifistNation.net as an addendum to this letter. But be warned, Pacifist Nation
is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage to confront you core beliefs: Pacifist
Nation is no place for wimps!
So, if it's not asking too much, go ahead, read the enclosed letter. It can't
hurt, can it?
Your in peace w/justice,
Daniel Daniel Beck Zwickel-Wicks
composer & Troubadour
2150 Goff Avenue, Pittsburg, CA 94565-4735
E-mail: Daniel@PeaceHost.net
(925) 439-7638 * Fax: (925) 439-2332
www.PacifistNation.net
Senator Joe Lieberman
706 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
October 2, 2000
Dear Senator Lieberman,
First,
let me offer my congratulations upon your nomination to the
Vice-presidency. Let's hope the White House can keep a good kosher kitchen. L'Shana
tovah!
You
may count on my vote for, despite our differences on a number of issues,
the importance of a Democratic White House, if only as it concerns the future make-up
of the Supreme Court, transcends those differences.
I am a pacifist. I am both a Jew, a Christian and an atheist. The latter may
startle you, following the first two, but you will understand my reasoning, and why
pacifism is, I believe, so vital to the state of our Union. I am a Jew by birth and
tradition and a Christian by denominational affiliation (Unitarian Universalist, which
explains it all.) My atheism is self-evident by definition. I believe that we must go
beyond God if humankind is to ever celebrate a common faith. Pacifism must be embraced
by all peoples, and cannot be qualified by a dependence upon a Western God. It must be
based on universalism or it will not stand.
Two thousand years ago, Christian tradition has it that a great Rabbi walked
amongst us. Whether or not the historic Jesus actually existed, the idea of him would
be just as important as the reality, for he saw Judaism through new eyes and redefined
it for millions of people to come. His was not a new Judaism, for the Torah is replete
with imperatives to social justice. He simply reminded us of something we should have
known. And I believe that he taught us that if we are to enjoy the promise of a just
society it must be built on compassion and forgiveness.
The God of the ancient Hebrews was a wrathful, vengeful and unforgiving God, an
appropriate mirror of a time when power belonged only to the strongest and the most
merciless. Jesus suggested a new paradigm which included all of humanity, down to the
most wretched.
America is built on that paradigm, and we continue to legislatively reinforce
our protection of the weak and disadvantaged.
We profess an abhorrence of war. We say that killing is wrong. We laud mercy,
compassion and forgiveness. And codified in nearly every religious tradition are
variations of what we consider to be an American virtue, the Golden Rule.
We speak of moral and family values, and yet, what do we instill in our
children? Expressions of physical pleasure are forbidden to public view, yet images of
torture and killing are all around us. We say that killing is wrong, then proceed to
kill the killers. We teach that and appropriate response to any threat, real or
perceived, of our "national interests" is to bomb. "Collateral damage" is justified
because it is part of a "just" war.
Senator, I heard you speak of seeing the world through other eyes. As one who
was intimately touched by the horror of the holocaust, can you not see the world
through the eyes of the parents of the five thousand children who die every month as a
result of U.S.-backed and directed U.N. sanctions against Iraq and our destruction of
their infrastructure?
Our Secretary of State has publicly declared that such deaths are justified in
order to stop a "madman". What are we, if not madmen, for what we have done?
The screenwriter for "An American President" had the good grace to cause his
character to admit, when told that his "proportionate response" to a Libyan action was
very "presidential", that it was the least presidential thing he would ever do. I
don't believe that the Michael Douglas character went far enough. I believe he wimped
out. Pacifism takes an enormous amount of courage and faith, and if we continue to
view an act of mass murder with pride, then we obviously don't have it.
Senator, you will agree that the messages we give our youth are of vital,
fundamental importance. If, by our actions, we betray our values of mercy, forgiveness
and compassion, we say that our moral values are of relative importance, that there are
times when we must act immorally. What does that say to our children? They see a
mobster executing a man on television, then they hear of the state executing another
man. What are they to think? Who decides when it's okay to kill? We say that torture
is illegal, but execution isn't. Torture is worse than killing? I have personal
friends who have been victims of torture (one defiently wears short-sleved shirts, the
tatooed numbers there for all to witness), and they are all very glad to be alive.
We face a terrifying new enemy. Any individual with the proper skills can
commit cyber-terrorism. An atomic bomb can be brought into a city in a suitcase. The
reality of assassination and bombings in other countries is only a heartbeat away from
becoming a reality here. Why is that so? Is it perhaps because we have, ourselves,
committed terrorism? We sponsored a civil war against the people of Nicaragua with our
creation of the contras. We continue to send graduates of the School of the Americas
to torture and kill civilians throughout Latin America. Is this not terrorism? We
rain terror on Iraq and the Balkans, and we actually justify this?
If we are to refrain from setting ourselves up to be terrorized in turn, we
must occupy the moral high ground. Are we up for it? Do we have the courage and the
will? Do we even know how?
I suggest that we must begin with an admittance of our past transgressions, and
make atonement for them. You and I, as Jews, should, of all people, understand the
importance of those acts. We set aside a part of every year for those reasons. I know
I ask the impossible, but we know that the impossible just takes longer, nu?
I want to address just a couple more points. We are all aware of your and
Vice-president Gore's stance on the death penalty. Setting aside the fact that
virtually the entire civilized world views us as barbaric in that regard, that the Pope
has declared it incompatible with Christian teachings, and that punishing killing with
killing sends a dangerously mixed message, there is one overriding reason why we must
change our national policy. All the aforementioned reasons are matters of individual
opinion and faith, both of which are relative and, therefore, suspect as arguments.
But there is one argument that is incontrovertible: as long as the state has the right
to take a single life, all of our civil rights are in jeopardy, for what is more
fundamental than the right to life?
One can argue justifiable homicide as a legal precept, but in an era where the
arena of capital crimes is being constantly expanded, and where we'll hear "Dead boy
walking!" in more and more states, I'm not so confidant that, in our collective
paranoia, perceived dangers to society will not come to include those who utter
unpopular thoughts. Look at history. Every autocracy recognizes that artists and
free-thinkers are the most dangerous individuals to those in power. This notion may be
a tad paranoid, but I believe the principle holds.
Finally, a further word on pacifism. To get the whole sense of it, you should
visit my Website, www.PacifistNation.net, but let me say this: Pacifism is perceived
to be a weakness, to be over-simplistic, totally impractical and hopelessly naive. It
is none those, and one fails to recognize that at one's peril. At its practical
simplest, pacifism is a prophylactic. It's aim is to prevent war by rectifying social
injustice and promoting non-violent alternatives to violent conflict resolution. It
seeks to stop acts of war in process and, ultimately, to fundamentally transform how we
govern, defend and promote the peace, from our own family and community to the world at
large.
At its heart is the belief that war is unacceptable, that we sacrifice our own
life before we sacrifice another's. If you look at war through the eyes of its
victims, you see that war is unthinkable, and if we haven't figured that out yet, then
we simply have not tried hard enough.
Would you have the heart to look in a Serbian child's eyes and explain how
killing his father was necessary? Can you tell an indigenous Guatemalan that the
School of the Americas alumnus who raped her and killed her baby was an aberration,
that the other 95% (by the SOA's own admittance) are honorable men and would not do
such a thing?
Those who view war as acceptable suffer a deplorable lack of imagination, for
if they had any imagination at all they would be pacifists to a man and to a woman.
All of which is not to disrespect those who have laid their lives on the line,
in the city or in the jungle. I respect their courage, the police officer who truly
believes in protecting and serving, the soldier who does not wish to be there, but who
feels bound by honor and duty. And it is out of respect for those individuals that we
pacifists seek to live non-violently, to work towards a just and peaceful society so
that their jobs become, ultimately, obsolete.
As I am not the perfect pacifist, we are not the perfect society. I cannot
become Gandhi overnight, nor can America become a Pacifist Nation. It is a slow,
painstakingly transformative process, beginning with the belief that it is possible.
And it becomes possible when we become signatories to the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, when we cease to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and,
by example, encourage and make it possible for others to do the same.
It becomes possible when we cease training Latin American police and soldiers
to terrorize their own people.
It becomes possible when we treat and regard our own indigenous people with
respect to their traditions regarding the sacred land and, in doing so, encourage
Mexico and Guatemala to do the same with their own people.
It becomes possible when we finally grant independence to the sovereign people
of Puerto Rico and remove our unwanted Naval presence from the island of Vieques; when
we grant sovereignty to the Hawaiian people and, in doing so, begin to atone for the
damage of one hundred years of oppression and exploitation.
It becomes possible when we cease to regard other countries as staging grounds
for our military adventures.
And it becomes possible when we admit to ourselves and to those we've harmed
that, in many respects, we've been a horse's ass (meaning no disrespect to horses.)
Forgive me, as a Jew, for suggesting that America is a Christian nation, though
it is a statistical fact that a majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian.
Why, then, can we (and I am, technically, a Christian) not act as a Christian nation
and give Christianity a good name for a change. Vatican II, in a poll, discovered that
the principal reason for people not believing in God was the behavior of Christians!
For the virtues expressed within Christianity, mercy, forgiveness and compassion, are
intrinsic to all faiths and, I daresay, exist with a majority of indigenous traditions,
for those traditions are largely centered around universal respect. It simply follows
that if we respect one another, we will treat them as we would wish to be treated: to
be shown mercy and compassion when we unthinkingly transgress, and to be forgiven our
transgressions.
How would such a powerful nation be regarded? Can we not see that war is not
inevitable, that it only happens if we allow it? And if we resolve to study war no
more, how can any other nation fare against such a moral imperative?
Blindly drop all our weapons and defenses? Hardly. Again, it must be a
transformative process, slowly but surely removing the need for such weapons and
defenses. We must begin by realizing that it is possible, by creating a clear vision
of a just and peaceful world and then resolving, with all our might, to realize that
vision, remembering the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Peace is not the absence of
conflict but the presence of justice."
I may not agree with you down the line, but I believe you to be an honorable
man, a man of integrity and of vision. Yes, your worthy opponent has a vision as well,
but his is the reason I prefer to live in California and not in Texas. I trust that
you and your esteemed running mate can help to guide us into a state that will be
greater than the sum of its parts and so, again, I sa, I cast my vote with you.
If you'll forgive me, since I first drafted this letter another thought has
come to my attention. You friend, Al, will appreciate this one.
You must be aware of the Gaia hypothesis. This is not just some New Age
nonsense. It is an area of serious scientific study. I did an informal pol the other
day of two scientists seated near me in a coffee shop (they have a start-up studying
environmental effects on the cellular level) and they agreed, scientifically speaking,
that it has validity. Simply put, it regards the planet earth as a living organism,
with a circulatory system, capable of adjusting its temperature and fighting off
invaders. It's the last I wish to address.
Think of time-scale, human vs. geological. Consider just the tenantcy of homo
sapiens, how many millions of years, and how long it's been since the industrial
revolution and we began mining, for instance, deeper than twenty or so meters (in human
terms virtually incapable of breaking the skin) and polluting the earth's pulmonary
system (cough, cough.) To scale, a micro-fraction of the time it takes for an
electrical impulse to get out of the station on its way to blinking an eye.
How quick are Gaia's reflexes? What is her reaction time? Fairly slow, by our
lights. Think splinters (surround by puss, eject through skin), cold virus (raise body
temp, kill off virus), and other corporal invaders (anti-bodies galore.) What, then
would be the Gaian analog? Ebola? AIDS (don't even think of groups affected, only of
the global human toll)?
As I see it, we have three options: One, allow Gaia to treat us as the
infection we are and either have our numbers dramatically reduced, along with our
returning to the stone age, if not dying out altogether or two, start emigrating
off-planet and hope we gain a foot-hold elsewhere, or else three, learn to develop a
nice, pleasant and harmless symbiotic relationship with our Mother.
In the end, of course (geologically speaking), it really doesn't matter. The
most enduring "non-biodegradable" fragment, the particle with the longest half-life
will be but memories, if that, in a geological period or two. Short of altering the
planet's orbit or shattering it into a collection of asteroids, there's nothing we can
do to Mama Earth that she can't deal with in her own sweet time.
And, depending on how quickly she gets her defenses up to speed, you and I will
probably be dead before, for instance, the Pacific is licking at the piedmont of the
Sierras or Gaia develops a cocktail of diseases, the least of which will be AIDS, TB
and Ebola, resistant to anything we'll ever dream up.
Personally, I'd rather we begin the heavy lifting than leave it to our
children's children. How about you? How small a footprint can we learn to make? And
does trying to deal with this little irritant under a Dubaya administration scare you
as much as it does me?
Senator, I wish you well in your journey. I wish you shalom euvrecha.
Warmest regards,
Daniel B. Zwickel
