[Sosfbay-discuss] Michael Berg says break the cycle of violence

[Tian Harter]

Yesterday afternoon Michael Berg gave a speech at the UU Church at Bonita
& Cedar in Berkeley. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it takes two hours 
to get
there by transit on Sunday afternoon until I was well on the way. I 
missed the
first part of the speech. When I got there a couple of dozen people were 
listening
with rapt attention to a gray haired man in a T shirt with a large pink 
peace sign.
He was explaining that the CIA had locked up his son, Nicholas Berg, for 
twelve
days during the time the news of Abu Ghraib. When they released Nick, they
warned him that their sleepy war had been radicalized by the news, but he
apparently didn't get the news on a visceral enough level.

Michael Berg said that the last contact he'd gotten directly from his 
son was
an email saying Nick was leaving Iraq soon, but he didn't know how just yet.
Then he told us of a vision he had soon after that. Michael saw his son 
being
kidnapped on a bus, which he later found out to be about what happened.
The next thing he knew, he was finding out his son had been beheaded by
people that were taking revenge on America for our prisoner abuses and
other crimes. He indicated that a lot of people had seen Nick's beheading
on the Internet.

Michael Berg then talked about restorative justice. He told us that 
after his
son had died he had taken a course in theology, and they had explained that
revenge for revenge was not the way. Bush's war was wrong, and Zarquowi
(if that's who it was) had been radicalized by news of prisoner abuses. The
time to break the cycle of violence was now. The Sister who taught the 
course
explained to him that if the person who had wronged him wasn't 
available, he
should find a proxy to talk out the issue with. He talked about talking 
to an
empty chair, asking "why did you do it?" Finally he realized that 
revenge has
to stop with himself. He sees President Bush as a deeply wounded man.

Michael Berg didn't really talk much about running for Congress as a Green
Party Candidate in Delaware. He mentioned being in favor of single payer
health care, but mostly his talk was about the spiritual aspects of 
restorative
justice. After the speech there were a couple of questions about it, but he
didn't want to jeopardize the church's 501.c.3 status by answering them.

After he sat down, somebody asked people to donate to his campaign, and I
did. I also saw several people writing checks. It was the softest pitch 
I can
remember. A few minutes later he ran off to a press conference at the BART
station, where the sound bite he put out there was "My son's death was
wrong, but Bush's war is worse. We need to bring the troops home NOW!"

-- 
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
I went camping a week or so ago. Looking at the stars,
I got to thinking that reading words about them probably hits
the eye with way more light then they actually send us.