ABSTRACT
I am angered by the irrational prejudice and violent hatred that I have seen in my lifetime. Far too many people have been maimed, annihilated, deprived, and demoralized in the name of religion, truth, vengeance, greed, and nationalism. This violence not only destroys the lives of individual human persons but also endangers our entire global community. A consuming hatred prevents us from moving forward to address urgent ecological, economic, health, energy, and water issues. The horrific results of prejudice and hatred are clear today: ethnic cleansing and rape in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Sudan; government and military slaughter of civilian protestors in Syria, Egypt, and so many other countries; hate crimes against minority persons; suicide bombings; and indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians in wars. The history of the 20th century is filled with other tragedies: “comfort women” during World War II, the Holocaust, apartheid, Jim Crow laws, trafficking of children for prostitution and abuse, lack of aggressive prevention and treatment of pandemic diseases like HIV/AIDS, lynchings, civil wars, and depletion of resources.
