i’m probably going to lose half of you with this post, but i’ve been thinking a lot about this subject.

i love the solidarity being displayed in america. but i feel like we’re not going far enough. if our highest feelings are for america, we will never end the mad cycle that fosters the environment in which violence thrives.

am i better than you? are you better than me? say the following words to your neighbors or coworkers: “i’m better than you. i’m the best there is.” shout it out your car window. “i’m smarter, i’ve got more technology, i’m richer, i’m nicer, i’m stronger, i’m humbler than any of you.” this is a ridiculous attitude on a personal level. it is prideful, rude and arrogant. is it any different on a national level? does america have the right to point our fingers in the faces of other countries and shout out to the rest of the world, “we’re better than all of you”?

america is not the best. america is not better. this kind of prideful thinking is what tears the world apart: the french, the japanese, the chinese, the british, the afghans, etc. are each thinking that they are in some way or in all ways better than the rest of the world.

on the web there are no borders. when i checked out the thought-provoking memorials on surfstation yesterday, i realized, as an afterthought, that many of the memorials were not made by americans. i marvelled at the art and read and respected opinions and poetry wihout caring about the citizenship of the creators. each individual work had impact regardless of whether the creator was norwegian or kenyan, black or white, male or female, young or old, marxist or capitalist, jew or muslim or atheist.

when you view the earth from the space shuttle or the moon, you see a beautiful mix of blues and greens under wispy patches of white. there are no lines indicating where mexico begins and the u.s. ends, no borders visible between european, african, or middle-eastern countries. national boundaries are artificial constructs. the differences between americans and palestinians, christians and muslims, germanic people and arabs are superficial when you realize that we are all tiny human beings clinging to a thin eggshell crust surrounded by a wisp of nitrogen and oxygen on a speck of dust and rock spinning around one of over 100 billion stars in the backwaters of a mundane galaxy.

and where is our moral high ground as americans? in desperation in world war two, our government made the calculated decision to snuff out the lives of over 100,000 civilians including an overwhelming majority of grandmothers and grandfathers, children and women. even allied soldier pows were sacrificed. for years after the war, thousands more (including many small children from leukemia) died tortuous, lingering deaths directly related to radiation exposure. most americans i meet continue to justify truman’s decision to murder innocent non-combatants in world war two. desperate times called for desperate action, i am told. things are different in war, they say.

there are groups at war with the united states, although we seem to have just figured this out. their armies cannot stand up to ours. they feel that their cause is just, and in desperation they attack our civilians and innocents. and i condemn their actions whole-heartedly. the killing of innocent bystanders, of little children, of single mothers, of grandmothers and grandfathers, of rescue personnel, in any circumstances is evil. there is no cause or rationalization which justifies these atrocities. the terrorists’ actions on tuesday were totally despicable.

so were america’s, just over half a century ago.

we need to realize that america is not perfect. we need to be aware that we belong to a greater community of imperfect nations and races and peoples and religions and beliefs, all struggling to get by on this tiny planet.

when we cast off our hypocrisy, our ignorance, and our arrogance, then we are ready to pursue justice with good conscience. then we will have the moral high ground and even our enemies will not be able to deny our impartiality and our even-handed dipensation of justice.

i am an american. i am japanese. i am also a german, an afghan, an australian, an indian, a nigerian, a peruvian.

i am a christian. i am a buddhist. i am also a muslim, a hindu, an atheist, a jew.

i am a member of humanity, a citizen of the world. every person upon this earth is my brother and my sister, my mother and my father, my son and daughter.

god bless america. god bless israel. god bless afghanistan. god bless palestine. god bless england and armenia and cambodia and haiti and all the world.

god bless us all::