It is heartbreaking to realize that we have been faced with the devastation caused by an evil dictator’s wrongful invasion of the independent nation of Ukraine for two years. For two years the world has witnessed battlefield death; civilians bombed, murdered, tortured, and raped; children killed, maimed, and orphaned; and entire cities wiped off the face of the Earth just to satisfy the ego-maniacal whims of the psychopathic dictator of an oppressor state.
For two years I have been saying – as a person who has dedicated his adult life to seeking justice – that I am dismayed on a daily basis by the catastrophic injustice that is Putin’s unjustifiable war against Ukraine. But as citizens of Santa Barbara County what can we do? This is what we can do! Doing and saying nothing is not an option.
As Bishop Desmond Tutu once said: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Holocaust survivor and author Elie Weisel said: “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
We are not here to celebrate war, but for Ukraine there can be no peace without freedom because, in light of Putin’s aggression, without freedom there is no life and no Ukraine. We do not appease the oppressor by capitulating, we empower him. As the aid necessary to allow Ukraine to stand against the oppressor is being held hostage by a small band of xenophobic politicians, we must stand with and support leaders like those who are here today who believe in freedom and the principles upon which this nation was founded.
Freedom is never free, but it is worth supporting – even when the oppression and injustice are half a world away. One of the greatest voices against injustice was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King believed that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
I will continue to stand with you until there is peace in Ukraine. Together we must continue to believe that our voices will join with those around the nation and around the world in support of a free Ukraine. To quote Bobby Kennedy: “Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
I stand with you today in support of a free Ukraine – hoping and praying for the war, the injustice, and the nightmare to end.