"What Next - a Memoir Toward World Peace" by Walter Mosley

[laura888]

What I'm reading these days...

I heard Walter Mosley speak on WPFW in D.C. and had to buy his book. He's a fiction-writer, but in this little book he challenges global capitalism which profits from creating wars, hunger and death around the world. He wrote it in response to 9/11.

An excerpt (page 51):

"Our enemies are the lawless dregs of world gone half-mad. It doesn't matter if they feel in their hearts that the crimes they commit are somehow justified. It doesn't matter if they are exonerated by their peers or religious leaders or by the moral interpretation of some government official. Murder in our realm is wrong, and anyone committing the crime is The Enemy of mankind - no exceptions allowed....The Enemy is a man, or woman, who has denied the common morality accepted by people everywhere in the world. He is not just my enemy, but The Enemy of everyone, everywhere.....Our enemies are all persons involved in causing deaths of others - either actively or from a consciously passive posture - for political, nationalistic or economic ends. If, as the evidence seems to indicate, Osama Bin Laden ordered the deaths of the Americans in the tragedy of 9/11, then his is The Enemy. If our agents caused the deaths of innocent Kurds, Panamanians, or Guatemalans, they then are The Enemy. We can't have it one way and not the other. We can't say that an American life is worth more than a Sudanese life. We can't condone the violent actions of our armies and secret police if we condemn the actions of others who use violence, torture and intimidation to obtain their ends.... We must seriously consider the possibility that we number among the ranks of The Enemy...."


Later he gives some remedies for bringing about world peace.

Some may say this is a naive book.

But..his guiding principle is the fact that his father, an African-American, changed, during his lifetime, from feeling less than human, to being a full-fledged American man with all the privileges of that position. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, this may have seemed like an impossible, naive dream, too.

Anyway- I wanted to share some of his wisdom with you... here's a link to the Amazon review...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1574780204/qid=1093182699/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-9108079-4026433?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[reprehensor]

1. Mosley is pretty deep.

I saw him on a PBS interview, didn't know who he was at first, but was impressed by the width and breadth of his knowledge on all things in the social sphere.

I saw Devil in a Blue Dress, and have been collecting his books for reading down the road a piece.

Thanks for sharing.

[salib]

2. Wonderful post. I did not know about him.

There are some great lights out there to help shed a little light for us to see by.