For The Sake Of All Living Things joins The 13th Valley in being available in all ebook formats.

Lots to talk about regarding the effects of Story. In this segment we glance at  the thoughts of the character John Sullivan, and at his statement, "truth must be our criterion for our moral judgment of past actions and present policies."

The passage below is from notes by Sullivan, a Special Forces Captain who served in Cambodia with the US Military Equipment Delivery Team. In the novel these words were written by him shortly after he learned of the evacuation of all people from Phnom Penh. How closely they might apply to situations in the current day is up to the reader to decide.

 

Do we need a new definition of peace, a new theoretical construct? In the American mind it is not non-peace if a nation slaughters its own people. War and Peace are not the only alternatives. That paradigm needs expansion otherwise incidents drop into categories which stimulate inappropriate responses. Holocaust is not peace! Genocide is not peace! Pogroms and gulags are not peace! Reeducation camps are not peace! Slavery is not peace! Fine! Stay out of other nations’ internal affairs—but when does a government lose its legitimacy? When does it forfeit its right to rule/represent/ serve its people? When does a neighbor have the right or the responsibility to stop the guy next door from abusing his child? Does a person from Massachusetts have the right to protest a Texas legislative action which upholds capital punishment? Why? Is there a line, and if so, when and how is crossing it justifiable?

That Phnom Penh was evacuated is… now well-known and well documented. That it was not the first of the evacuations is also well documented if less well recognized (recall the entire Northern Corridor evacuations which I witnessed in 1971). That it seemingly will not be the last is deeply disturbing. Evacuations, forced migrations and purges are part and parcel of the Communist policy to remake the culture.

As to Jerry Ford, would a public tantrum over the murder of 300,000 have been seen as a sign of weakness or a sign of humanity, a sign of clumsiness or a sign of leadership? Is America now unleadable? Did Ford’s golf handicap increase or decrease during this period? Can Carter jog beyond it? Is America guilty of mythological ostrich-ism? Is it easier to bury our heads in each other’s asses (and call it a sexual revolution)?

History. Truth. As closely as we can achieve truth via neutral observation (which does not mean neutral conclusions) that truth must be our criterion for our moral judgment of past actions and present policies.

Good and evil do exist. Between, there are shades of gray… but… recognizing ground between should not limit one from seeing and judging the ground at the ends!