America won't be great until all work for peace

Monday was the anniversary of our nation's birth. There was a great deal of well-intentioned patriotic display and talk surrounding the notion that we are a great nation.

We are not a great nation. We cannot become a great nation until we can stop singing "God Bless America" and start singing "God Bless All People Everywhere."

Yesterday 35,000 children died from the effects of not having enough to eat. Yesterday was not unique. 35,000 died on the day before, and 35,000 will die today and tomorrow and even on July 4th. We as a people have the technological capacity to change that. We do not have the political will to do so. In other words we can do something about it, we don't want to.

When we can muster the political will to do something meaningful about children dying of starvation, then we can start to become a great nation. When we can pursue the blessings of peace and prosperity for the hill tribes of the Middle East and the tarpaper shack people of South America and the homeless and hungry ones in our own cities and villages, as fervently as we pursue them for ourselves, then we can become a great nation.

The greatest men of history have not been warriors, they have been peacemakers, they have been servants and so it is with nations. When we can make that transition as a people, then we can become great.

DOUG KIMBALL

Sandpoint