One Book, One Bettendorf

This I believe, that peace and freedom is the natural desire of all human beings.

I grew up Jewish in New York City. On television, I watched newsreels of the liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps, the terrible horror as mountains of naked bodies were bulldozed into trenches for mass burials. A friend’s mother was a camp survivor complete with a number tattooed on her forearm. She was skinny as a rail and afraid to go out. All this just couldn’t be real, but it was. I visited her apartment and played with her son. She was a happy woman watching her son playing with a friend in the peace and security of America. She was happy that life was better for him than it had been for her. I believe that the single most important matter for all peoples is the wellbeing of their families, not their material possessions.

In New York I saw lots of good people, going about their lives in the intense privacy that comes with the anonymity of the crowds. I recall during the great East Coast Blackout, I was an ROTC cadet at the time and a few friends and I pitched in to help. We led folks to safety out of darkened subway trains, and we directed traffic at major road intersections. Later in life, I came to the Quad Cities. There were floods and I helped fill sandbags along with co-workers on the Arsenal. Nobody ever asked for a thank-you, they were just doing what was right. I learned ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ isn’t just a concept or a cliché; it’s a way of life.

I joined the American Civil Liberties Union and served six years on their national board. We debated policies on Civil Liberties, and thru the give and take of those debates, I realized their importance. Once the ACLU agreed upon a policy, there was an irreversible movement to those ends. I learned that the rights we defend today would one day be looked upon by our children as just the natural order of things and that they would imagine America any other way.

I saw the great hope for real peace in the world as President William Jefferson Clinton brought old adversaries together at the peace table and hands were shaken and agreements made and peace flourished. I also saw failures as George W Bush pulled back from hard won agreements, thumbed his nose at the world and brought us into an unnecessary war.

I realized that the natural progress of humanity has been towards increased freedoms and decreased conflict. At times there have been backslides, mostly when cynical leaders have used hatred and fear for their own political purposes and self-aggrandizement. Still, throughout all history, freedoms and liberties have increased, bigotry has decreased and conflict has been looked upon with more and more disdain.

This I believe, people are inherently good. That is the natural condition of mankind. I shall take this optimism to my grave, secure in the absolute certainty that I am right. To believe anything else would be unbearable.

Arthur J Heyderman

Tags: Bettendorf

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Bettendorf. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.