Soapbox: Mother's Day Founder would be appalled

By Tom Loret
Twentynine Palms | Hi-Desert Star opinion page | Posted: Saturday, May 14, 2011

It was Julia Ward-Howe who successfully campaigned for the establishment of our nation’s first Mother’s Day in 1870. In 1861 she had already penned America’s most famous song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which still remains one of our most patriotic hymns. She was a tireless feminist who fought diligently for the rights of women and for the welfare of children irrespective of race, religion or economic circumstance. Mother’s Day was inaugurated with a poem she wrote, “Mother’s Day Proclamation.” There is nothing sentimental about it and has nothing to do with flowers, candy or cards. With the Civil War fresh in mind, it calls on all women to rise up, organize for peace and forbid their husbands and sons from ever again taking the life of any other mother’s son or wife’s husband or child’s father. It is the cry of one mother, perhaps the Madonna of her day, to end the senseless violence of senseless wars caused by senseless men.

To the headline newsmakers of our day I am confident she would just say, no. No gentlemen, we do not need more guts, more guns, more bombs, more drill baby drill, ever more shock and awe, nor ever more austerity for the atrocities of ever more hostility. What we need is love, without which America will never rise above its celebrated bottom line, that place that has become America’s graveyard for all things good and noble.

“Has America learned?” she would ask. Because not until America says no to violence wil Americans be free from violence. Until Americans say no to hatred, Americans will remain hated. When Americans say no to slavery, Americans will not become enslaved. When America stands up for equal justice then Americans will have their human and civil rights. When Americans stand up for freedom, then America will be free. But until then, America will continue to sink ever deeper into the impotence of war, suffer the cruelties of cultural and economic impoverishment and fall victim to a sick and disease-riddled life.

On this Mother’s Day do we shrug our shoulders, remain silent in the face of institutional and environmental collapse, refuse to hear the screams of those we torture, bow our head before the lies of corrupt politicians, excuse the malfeasance of multinational corporations that pollute our lands, water and air? Do we act and behave with the apathy and compliance of any good slave whose duty it is to please its master — secular and sacred? Do we continue to vote and endorsethe very cretins who do us the most harm so that they themselves may prosper?

These are important, vital questions we ought to be asking ourselves and our neighbors becauseunless Americans are able, at last, to comprehend the rudiments of our Golden Rule, can see our self within the heart of the other, then we will always stand apart, divided into working class, middle class and rich, into foreigners and nationals, segmented into church identity, racially divided, caged in gender roles, made into an us-versus-them, dog-eat-dog world, me against you, and no amount of mother’s love will ever save us from ourselves.