Open letter to Senator Hillary Clinton

Hello, there, everyone, and here is an open letter I sent this evening to
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

In peace and love,

Margo

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 20:06:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: mschulter <mschulter@...>
To: senator@...
Subject: The struggle for peace with justice

To the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton
Senate of the United States
Washington, D.C.

Dear Senator Clinton:

Please let me write to express friendship and solidarity in this sad
time when you are so eloquently representing the people of New York,
voicing their experience of tragedy and determination to build a
better future, and reminding us all that we are also participants as
well as spectators in this drama before the common theater of
humanity.

Humbly sharing this resolve toward a more peaceful and more just world
free from terrorism in all its forms, I seek to express some concerns
relevant not only to the struggle against terrorism, but to the larger
and imperative need to actualize and expand the Four Freedoms of which
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke.

In decades since, these liberating words have taken on a new relevance
and richness as informed by the advancing movement for human rights
throughout the world, and the "evolving standards of decency" of an
emerging international community, to quote the words of the United
States Supreme Court in _Trop v. Dulles_, a famous decision
interpreting our own Bill of Rights.

With greatest respect, I join others in urging that basic human rights
are invisible; that rejection of terrorism requires an affirmation of
these rights in theory and practice; and that in struggling for a
future free from terror, we must also seek to overcome forms of social
and economic inequity which intolerably compromise human dignity both
in themselves and by sowing the seeds of further terrorism.

First, any struggle for a truly safe and free future must address an
especially dangerous form of terrorism and injustice within or across
state borders: the oppression of women, whether carried out with the
most brutal violence in places such as Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, or
whether more quietly manifested in such forms as wage inequity and
anti-Lesbian discrimination.

Violence against women, whether institutionalized in practices such as
state executions or restrictions on education, committed by security
or paramilitary forces which within the last decade have used sexual
assault and torture as weapons of repression, or condoned in domestic
relations, has a dehumanizing effect transmitting the cycle of
violence, pain, and terror to new generations.

Not only a rejection of such violence, but a positive struggle to
promote world development with a central role for women at the
community, national, and international levels, is essential if we are
to take the initiative in combating this insidious form of terror, and
setting the equitable foundations of true security for all.

Second, esteemed international human rights organizations have pointed
to one form of institutionalized terrorism still practiced by all too
many states, despite a mounting consensus for abolition: the death
penalty. By engaging the state in the premeditated killing of a
subdued prisoner, the death penalty emulates the crime of murder and
sets an example which private citizens, and terrorist organizations,
may all too easily in turn follow.

Unconditional abolition of the death penalty in all jurisdictions of
the United States, and our generous support for its abolition wherever
else in the world it is still retained, will help our Nation to bear
moral witness to the sacredness of life and more authoritatively to
condemn its violation by terrorism of any kind, state-sponsored or
otherwise.

Third, recalling your words earlier this year cautioning us that we
must seek to move forward, not to move backward by decades or even
generations as basic social and economic safeguards are increasingly
eroded, I would affirm that this counsel is all the more vital in our
hour of crisis and decision.

When President Roosevelt spoke of "Freedom from Want," he could point
to legislation which had made a modest and yet impressive beginning in
building structures of basic human decency and security for all our
citizens -- a progressive effort which today can, should, and must
inform our global economic policies and activities also.

Some would say that in 1990's, these structure of basic economic
security and balance were already being eroded by legislation speaking
more to the political trends of the moment than to the interest of the
coming generation in a society marked by increasing social equity
rather than dangerously accelerating inequities of wealth and want.

However we view history, today we must do more than avoid moving back
three or more generations as the safeguards of economic security
collapse. We must strive to move 50 or 60 years forward not only in
protecting and enhancing these structures at home, but in fostering
them on a global scale in an environmentally sustainable way.

"In union we are strong," and in nurturing the growth of strong trade
unions, the power of collective bargaining, and the flourishing of
cooperatives, we built a most potent line of defense against want and
terrorism alike.

Finally, in discussing and debating the fateful issues of war and
peace which now confront us, we should seek to rise above the barriers
of partisanship and the deadly seductions of revenge toward the path
of active nonviolence to promote peace and justice, however our
assessments of strategy or judgments of conscience may differ as we
share in this quest.

While "bipartisanship" is often extolled in times of national crisis,
I would like to advocate an outlook nicely expressed by a different
word recalling much of the best of our civil tradition:
_nonpartisanship_, a paramount respect for the interests of country
and humanity transcending any political party or alignment of
convenience.

Sadly, "bipartisanship" has too often meant uncritical consensus in
errors of most tragic proportions, with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
of 1964 and the swiftly escalating slaughter in Indochina that
followed as an example I witnessed in my youth.

Nonpartisanship, in contrast, means a principled commitment to seek
peace which rises above all political categories or national borders,
a willingness to be in a minority -- if needs be, a minority of one --
in order to bear witness for those touched or threatened by the
violence of war, and to give voice to nonviolent alternatives all too
often unconsidered and untaken.

Embodying this nonpartisan spirit, Representative Barbara Lee from my
own State of California has set an example of political courage and
moral independence in the name of peace and justice which I hope may
be honored and revered in both Houses of Congress, however views may
differ on the issues she so movingly articulated in the tradition of
Jane Addams, Robert LaFollette, or Martin Luther King, Jr.

Above all, let us recognize that the worldwide struggle against
terrorism means defending the "beloved community" of which Dr. King
spoke by moving it into a future filled with active nonviolence,
social and economic equity, and universal human rights.

Most respectfully,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@...
30 September 2001