America's Dilemma / The Need For Moral Courage

Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change: Robert F Kennedy

How can we justify that every year our worldwide military activities absorb resources equal over two-thirds of the gross national product of the poorer half of the world's population ?

How can we justify that over 40% of the total amount of research and development spending since World War Two has been directed at achieving military ends ?

There is only one plausible answer ~ We are and continue to be controlled by fear.

According to the Economist ~ America has less than 5% of the world's people but almost 25% of its prisoners. We imprison 756 people per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the world average. About one in every 31 adults is either in prison or on parole. Black men have a one in three chance of being imprisoned at some point in theirs lives. http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13415267

" A Leviathan unmatched in human history " is how Glenn Loury, professor of social studies at Brown University characterized America's prison system.

Yet few mainstream politicians have had the moral courage to denounce this glaring moral embarrassment and failure as well as hold accountable those in high political position who recommended and condoned torture. 

America was conceived by men of moral courage who believed in themselves and their destiny. They took a stand on human, moral and spiritual values despite great risk, aloneness and hardship. The hope of America lies within the hearts of its people ~ not within the walls of its institutions and corporations. 

Kenneth B Clark, author of Dark Ghetto and Pathos Of Power, summarized The American Dilemma in 1976 , New York Times ~  " The essential for hope is to be found in that critical minority of human beings who insist upon being unrealistic, who for some still unknown set of reasons continue to argue that human beings are somehow capable of the possibility of empathy, compassion, love and sensitivity even as cruelty, hostility , insensitivity and rationalized dishonesty now dominate."  

Moral Courage is taking a stand for these values, regardless of the risks, as myself and many other columnists and bloggers do everyday on the web or mainstream press. 

This ripple of voices can eventually undermine the greatest stumbling blocks and turn them into stepping stones toward needed change. 

Robert F Kennedy said it perfectly ~ " Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."  

There is no change without action ~ and action always involves risk and moral courage.

Allen L Roland   http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/05/05.html