What can we do when innocent children like Christina-Taylor Green are killed senselessly? We can do all we can to prevent the next senseless murder. That means adults need to act like adults. We need to end the wild proliferation of weapons; politicians spewing lies, hatred and intolerance; and people acting as if the Bible and the Constitution give them the right to abandon reason and go on the warpath.
We know the things we need to do if we want our children to live in a safer, better world. We cannot allow the NRA and fearmongering politicians who speak and behave like fascists to rule our lives and endanger innocent children. If we want to live in a safer world, we need to make a pledge to protect the innocent and put an end to the bullying we see everywhere around us.
How can this happen? The answer is simple. How did we end child sacrifice, witchhunts and slavery? We decided as a society that such things are not acceptable. Today we need to decide, as a society, that things that endanger innocent children are not acceptable. This means telling politicians like Sarah Palin to tone down their overheated rhetoric. It means telling the NRA to back off. It means telling politicians that we are not willing to send our children to die in wars to “secure” foreign oilfields or to “support” allies of ours who practice systematic racial and creedal injustices against their own citizens.
And we need to abandon the lie that we were attacked without cause on 9-11. (Christina-Taylor Green was born on Sept. 11, 2001.) We were attacked on 9-11 because our government constantly interferes in the Middle East because of our “oil interests,” and has aided and abetted racist actions of Israel that have caused millions of Palestinians to suffer terribly for over 60 years. Many completely innocent Palestinian women and children have died as a result. If we consider how we feel when one child is killed unjustly, we should be able to understand how Palestinians feel when their children are killed unjustly, or are forced to live in giant walled ghettos and concentration camps while other people constantly steal their land and water.
Now the fear, anger and despair caused by 9-11 and two decade-long wars are causing some Americans to go on the warpath, or to surrender to intolerance and practice injustices against Muslims, even those who are law-abiding American citizens. If we want our children to grow up in safety, we cannot allow our government to kill Muslim women and children, or aid and abet acts of systematic racism that are practiced against them. We have the power to change our world for the better, and an important step is to change our culture and society to not allow things that endanger innocent children.
Michael R. Burch
Nashville 37221