Peacemaking and Community

Einstein said / warned us that . . .

The current state of Science and our capability in creating weapons of mass destruction CHANGES EVERYTHING . . . EXCEPT THE MIND OF MAN!!


Here is an excerpt of a recent 60 Minutes interview by Lesley Stahl with the last remaining person who was a Nuremberg Prosecutor (Benjamin Ferencz). He talks of his life-long effort TO END WAR!!!!!


Lesley Stahl: Did you meet a lot of people who perpetrated war crimes who would otherwise in your opinion have been just a normal, upstanding citizen?


"War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people."


Benjamin Ferencz: Of course, is my answer. These men would never have been murderers had it not been for the war. These were people who could quote Goethe, who loved Wagner, who were polite--


Lesley Stahl: What turns a man into a savage beast like that?


Benjamin Ferencz: He's not a savage. He's an intelligent, patriotic human being.


Lesley Stahl: He's a savage when he does the murder though.


Benjamin Ferencz: No. He's a patriotic human being acting in the interest of his country, in his mind.


Lesley Stahl: You don't think they turn into savages even for the act?


Benjamin Ferencz: Do you think the man who dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was a savage? Now I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.


So Ferencz has spent the rest of his life trying to deter war and war crimes by establishing an international court – like Nuremburg. He scored a victory when the *** international criminal court in The Hague *** was created in 1998. He delivered the closing argument in the court's first case.


"If they tell me they want war instead of peace, I don't say they're naive, I say they're stupid."


Lesley Stahl: Now, you've been at this for 50 years, if not more. We've had genocide since then.


Benjamin Ferencz: Yes.


Lesley Stahl: In Cambodia—


Benjamin Ferencz: Going on right this minute, yes.


Lesley Stahl: Going on right this minute in Sudan.


Benjamin Ferencz: Yes.


Lesley Stahl: We've had Rwanda, we've had Bosnia. You're not getting very far.


Benjamin Ferencz: Well, don't say that. People get discouraged. They should remember, from me, it takes courage not to be discouraged.


Lesley Stahl: Did anybody ever say that you're naive?


Benjamin Ferencz: Of course. Some people say I'm crazy.


Lesley Stahl: Are you naive here?


Benjamin Ferencz: Well, if it's naive to want peace instead of war, let 'em make sure they say I'm naive. Because I want peace instead of war. If they tell me they want war instead of peace, I don't say they're naive, I say they're stupid. Stupid to an incredible degree to send young people out to kill other young people they don't even know, who never did anybody any harm, never harmed them. That is the current system. I am naive? That's insane.


Ferencz is legendary in the world of international law, and he's still at it. He never stops pushing his message and he's donating his life savings to a Genocide Prevention Initiative at the Holocaust Museum. He says he's grateful for the life he's lived in this country, and it's his turn to give back.


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*
* Lesley Stahl: You are such an idealist.
*
*
* Benjamin Ferencz: I don't think I'm an idealist. I'm a realist. And I see the progress. The progress has been
* remarkable. Look at the emancipation of woman in my lifetime. You're sitting here as a female. Look what's
* happened to the same-sex marriages. To tell somebody a man can become a woman, a woman can become
* a man, and a man can marry a man, they would have said, "You're crazy." But it's a reality today.
*
* So the world is changing. And you shouldn't -- you know-- be despairing because it's never happened before.
* Nothing new ever happened before.
*
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