Hands up! Don't shoot!

Ferguson, Missouri - why does a city of 70,000 people need a police force with tanks and automatic rifles?   A city that is 60% black with a white mayor and 1 black person on the city council.  Oh, maybe that's why tanks and automatic rifles are needed.  Who can imagine a scenario in which an 18 year old white man would have been shot 6 times in the same circumstances - cops stopping 2 young white man walking down the middle of the street, leading to leaving one lying dead in his own blood on the street?    But, wait, hear all the voices - including Obama's - telling (black) people to calm down, to protest peacefully, violence never helps.  Someone should have told that to the cop that shot down Michael Brown.  Oh, wait, that's what Dr. King said before Selma, 50 years ago.  Oh, wait, Dr. King was shot down.  Remember Watts?  Remember Rodney King?  Remember Treyvon Martin?  

And then there is the Islamic State fka ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.  Forced conversions to Islam or summary executions.  Selling women and children into slavery - in 2014.  

How did that "women's cigarette" brand used to advertise itself?   Virginia Slims - you've come a long way, baby!  Oh, we human beings have come a long way, ain't we baby cakes?  We used to burn people at the stake if they would not convert to Christianity.  We used to kidnap black people, lock them in the bellies of ships and sell them into slavery in the "new" world.  We used to occupy people's homeland, wipe them out, and then "negotiate" a "settlement" granting them a "reservation".  We used discriminate against people of color, against women, against gay people.   But we're way past all that now, aren't we?  Well done, human race.  God must be very happy with us these days.

That's all I have to say today, except:

"It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it" (Avot 2:21) - Rabbi Tarfon.  

Wage peace.