[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 8]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 11587]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       IN HONOR OF ROBERT SCHEER

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 20, 2000

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I call to your attention the article 
written in today's Los Angeles Times by Robert Scheer. It answers the 
call of those countless generations of Americans who have ceaselessly 
sung in unison the hymn, ``All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance''. 
As John Lennon might say, ``Imagine . . .''

              [From the Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2000]

            `Give Peace a Chance'--While the Fools Fight On

                           (By Robert Scheer)

       When it comes to world politics, the best Beatle was right. 
     Last week as the news came in from Pyongyang, I couldn't get 
     the image out of my mind of him at some long ago peace rally 
     singing, ``All we are saying is give peace a chance.'' Not 
     that it didn't seem at times corny and futile trying to keep 
     those little candles from blowing out, but the world peace he 
     was pushing now does, at last, seem to be the happening 
     thing.
       What further evidence do we need than that picture of the 
     two Kims from Korea, North and South, holding hands and 
     singing a song of peaceful reunification? Yoko Ono could've 
     written the script. Mark the moment; it represents the 
     triumph of Lennonism. John that is, not Vladimir.
       The specter of communism, the threat of violent worldwide 
     revolution died with that Kim to Kim photo, and along with it 
     the Cold War obsessions that have made the world crazy these 
     past 56 years. If the two Koreas, divided by the most heavily 
     fortified military barrier left in the world, can come to 
     terms, what warring parties can't? The message is clear; The 
     threat from this and other ``rogue nations'' can be met far 
     more cheaply with talk, trade and aid than with a $60-billion 
     missile defense systems and other warrior fantasies.
       It is time to pay homage to that much maligned arm of 
     pacifists like Dorothy Day, A.J. Muste, David Delinger, 
     Bertrand Russell, Benjamin Spock, Linus Pauling and Martin 
     Luther King, Jr. Merely for insisting that we have a common 
     humanity that can redeem our enemies, they were scorned as 
     dupes and even reviled as traitors.
       Some hard-liners thought that as well of Richard M. Nixon 
     when he journeyed to Red China to make peace with the devil 
     that he had done so much to define. Then came Gorbachev and 
     Reagan burying the hatchet that their military advisors 
     preferred be honed. Today, Pete Peterson, a former prisoner 
     of war, sits as the U.S. ambassador in Hanoi, where the 
     prison in which he was held has been turned into a tourist 
     hotel, Soon, we may even have the courage to recognize that 
     the ``threat'' from Cuba has never been more than a cruel 
     joke.
       But the lesson that peace is practical has been extended to 
     conflicts beyond the Cold War. The mayhem inspired by those 
     drunk on the potency of their purifying religious, ethnic and 
     nationalist visions continues, but they can smell the odor of 
     their own defeat, The fools fight on in places like Sierra 
     Leone, but the smartest among the world's militant 
     revolutionaries have already abandoned violence for peace.
       The PLO and IRA are now partners in peace with their sworn 
     enemies, for which another president--Bill Clinton--deserves 
     much credit. Iran has elected a majority of moderates to run 
     its government; Syria will have a modern new leader who may 
     at last respond positively to the risks that Israel has taken 
     for peace in withdrawing from southern Lebanon, Libya's 
     Moammar Kadafi has surrendered alleged hijackers, and even 
     the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan is now said to be 
     uneasy with the Osama bin Laden gang of terrorists.
       Forgiveness of past crimes is far from automatic, and it 
     can be more tempting for demagogues such as Serbia's Slobodan 
     Milosevic to profit from the stoking of hatred than to engage 
     in tedious efforts at reconciliation. But the evidence is 
     overwhelming that peace can prevail even when the historic 
     sense of grievance runs high. The model is Nelson Mandela, 
     who emerged from almost three decades in horrid prisons in 
     South Africa as a true saint of peace, shunning hate and even 
     embracing the jailers who stole most of his life.
       Think of Pope John Paul II, who forgave his would-be 
     assassin and travels endlessly to make peace with those who 
     trampled on the religion he holds sacred. Or Egypt's Anwar 
     Sadat and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, who died at the hands of 
     their own people but whose example in life had been so strong 
     that it lasted beyond their deaths.
       So, too, the example of John Lennon, who risked his 
     celebrity and was treated as a fool by a media that dismissed 
     his Eastern pacificism as they once did that of Mohandas K. 
     Gandhi. And King, another Gandhi disciple, who dared to link 
     the civil rights peace movements as a common assertion of 
     humanity and was scorned by the political establishment for 
     it.
       There will be other martyrs to the cause of peace, many 
     quite obscure, as those who serve in barely noticed 
     international brigades like the blue-helmeted troops of the 
     United Nations. They stand, sometimes pathetically, against 
     chaos, but in the end, they will be blessed as peacemakers.
       Peace works because deep down, it's what people of all 
     stripes want--to make love, not war.

     

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