BEYOND THE POLITESSE OF POLITICAL PANTOMIME

Michael Colby at Broadsides comments on the last Sunday's meeting in Barre between Congressperson Peter Welch and 100 or so of his Vermont constituents about his recent votes surrounding the continued funding of the Iraq occupation.

I was not able to attend, but recall these prophetic words of Thomas Merton.

"Very often people object that nonviolence seems to imply passive acceptance of injustice and evil and therefore that it is a kind of cooperation with evil. Not at all. The genuine concept of nonviolence implies not only active and effective resistance to evil but in fact a more effective resistance... But the resistance which is taught in the Gospel is aimed not at the evil-doer, but at evil in its source."
- from Passion For Peace