Reply #26: That's all I need to know about him--that he was anywhere near the

[Peace Patriot]

death squads in El Salvador--let alone a major instigator. It's hard to put the evils that Americans like this have perpetrated on the rest of the world into list a bad, worse, worst and unspeakable. I suppose Vietnam has to rank as unspeakable, because of its sheer magnitude--upwards of two million Vietnamese and Southeast Asians burned, bombed or shot. But somehow the spirit of the Vietnamese people never waivered. We could not defeat them, physically or spiritually. They pitied us! That is why I would even hestate to put them first--because, despite the scale of death, they were not bowed.

It's the demoralizing atocities that are hardest to forgive, and, of those, El Salvador comes first to my mind. And Nicaragua second. And Haiti third (although the French share that one with us). The list is very long.

I guess I am speaking personally--what hit me at the time. I knew no one there. But I did know nuns, and priests, and leftists who were like those who were murdered. I might have been murdered myself, had I lived there. And despite my lack of piety, the story of that generous and courageous man, Archbishop Romero, and his murder in his church, utterly bewildered me, for one thing. I couldn't imagine a Salvadoran man who could bring himself to do that. It was beyond the beyond. I didn't know much about the School of the Americas, at the time. But I know now that they took people out of their communities and away from their homes, and their loved ones, and all their ties to humanity, including their religious ties, and out of their country and their culture, and programmed them to be torturers and killers.

Killing of the spirit. Death of the soul. Turning a once loving boy or man into a monster, deliberately.

Ah, me. And Nicaragua was equally bad--not so much from church associations, as from the perspective of a US citizen, who saw the US Congress forbid that terrible war, and then the Reaganites go right ahead and do it anyway, covertly, through their dirty ties to Iranian arms dealers. There never was a more non-violent violent revolution than that one--led by mild-mannered Daniel Ortega, father of eight children.

And none of the men who did these things has ever paid for it, as they should. I don't believe in jail or the death penalty. I think they all, from Reagan on down, should have been made to give all their money to the poor, and do lifetimes of gentle community service among the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, the old. I still believe in redemption. I believe that we are obliged to give every soul every possible chance it can have at redemption and enlightenment.

That's what I think we should do with the Bushites--after we get as much of the peoples' money back as possible.

I am ready to replace the entire court and "justice" system with councils of wise people, maybe all retired people, who are charged with creating sentences that aim at redemption, enlightenment and healing, perhaps on a system of good behavior whereby the time of service or healing (or restitution) is knocked down according to willing cooperation.

Of course we would have to reform many laws to do this (such a legalizing all drug use) and decriminalize our whole society and begin working from entirely different premises.

The crime of killing a person's spirit, or a peoples' spirit--their hopes, their dreams, their resilience--is a very great one. It is difficult not to desire harsh punishment for such criminals--in the delusion that it is a deterrent. It isn't. We have to find another way.

Wonderfully, other Latin American peoples' have not been bowed by the atrocities inflicted on them in our name--or if they were bowed, it was temporary, and they have successfully walked what must have been a difficult road back to peace, justice and empowerment. I'm thinking of Michele Batchelet, just elected president of Chile--who was tortured by our approved dictator Pinochet, and lost family members to that junta.

I don't have much information about El Salvador and Nicaragua now--except that I just read somewhere that the Bushites are interfering in the Nicaraguan election to prevent Daniel Ortega from becoming president.

I don't know that El Salvadorans or Nicaraguans have damaged spirits. But if they do, they may be greatly heartened by what is happening elsewhere in Latin America.

Judi, if you know about these countries, please fill me in.