Connect the dots

Treading some of the same ground as Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous "A Time to Break Silence" speech, Ira Chernus asks us to look beyond the Iraq catastrophe to underlying causes -- and link those causes to a broader critique of American society.

Chernus writes:

For those of us who oppose the war in Iraq, King’s great sermon teaches us that it’s not enough to speak out against one war, as if it were an isolated problem. We can and should use this war as a bright light to illuminate all the dark corners of the American system.

For the first time since the Vietnam war, a majority of the country recognizes that the government has done a terrible wrong. That means people may be willing to listen to questions they’ve never taken seriously before: Why has the government made such a mistake for the second time in forty years? Can it be just an accident? Or does it tell us something about the way the American political and economic system works?

Once people begin to ask those questions, it opens up a rare opportunity to get them thinking about the fundamental structures of the system that lead to war. That’s what Dr. King wanted people to think about, talk about, and be outraged about in 1967. That’s the guidance his words still offer us today.