The Timmon Wallis and Joe Gannon opinion pieces (Gazette Jan. 31 and Feb. 4), arguing over the relative evils of Hiroshima versus the Holocaust, prove, if nothing else, how resilient and contagious are the evils of violence, war, hate, and revenge, clearly reaching biblical levels in Gaza and Minneapolis, et al, while we see Hitler reincarnated in dangerous offspring everywhere: Moscow, Israel, Tehran, Washington D.C.
Gannon’s letter states, “The nuclear age Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave birth to was and is now a far more dangerous world.” But he claims it “destroyed an evil that might [otherwise] still prevail.” The trouble is, it does still prevail — with a vengeance. Literally. The nuclear evil that our nation dropped on Japan — twice — did not destroy the evil after Pearl Harbor and did not prevent the re-emergence of genocide in Rwanda or Gaza. After the Hamas evil on October 7, victims and survivors turned around and created more evil — much, much more. The letter states, “Sometimes we have to live with such contradictions.” But fighting evil with evil does not leave only contradiction. It leaves us with ever more evil.
The current photos of the remains of Gaza are almost indistinguishable from the old photos of Hiroshima … or Dresden. The hate and video-gaming vengeance and violence, mixed with bigger and more nuclear weaponry, is too dangerous to be in the hands of the insane who keep doing the same things to each other, and to the endangered world, over and over, hoping for safer results.
Jane McPhetres Johnson
Amherst