2015 HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS MAGAZINE LINCOLN DAILY NEWS.COM NOVEMBER 25, 2015 Page 41
In the 1992 techno-thriller “Sneakers” starring
Robert Redford and an all-star cast, Redford plays
a security pro named Bishop who finds his past
coming back to haunt him. He and his unique
team are tasked by the NSA with retrieving a
particularly important item, a “decryption chip”
that would allow whoever possesses it to crack any
password and any code that exists, thereby creating
equality and peace on earth in the right hands.
When they successfully retrieved the chip from
bad-guy Cosmo (played by Ben Kingsley), Bernard
Abbott (played by James Earl Jones), a senior
agent from the NSA negotiates with each member
of the team for possession of the chip. The last
person of the team, “Whistler,” a blind savant
(played by David Strathairn) made his personal
request:
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watch?v=JHU0HinVhYc
Bernard Abbott:
Are we done here?
Bishop:
Not yet. Whistler?
Whistler:
I want peace on earth and good will
toward men.
Bernard Abbott:
Oh, this is ridiculous.
Bishop:
He’s serious.
Whistler:
I want peace on earth and goodwill
toward men.
Bernard Abbott:
We’re the United States
Government! We don’t do that sort of thing.
Bishop:
You’re just gonna have to try.
Bernard Abbott:
All right, I’ll see what I can do.
Whistler:
Thank you very much. That’s all I ask.
Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men is a common
request in a world where peace is an uncommon
quality. Zooming out, we read the headlines and
watch news stories that reveal a world that seems
totally bent on destruction and violence, war and
famine, inequality and subjugation, chaos and
conflict.
While we call for Peace on Earth, we seem to
be relying on someone else to establish peace;
someone like the government, or the United
Nations, or the World Court; someone big with
a lot of power. But the fruits of government
and court efforts seem to produce even greater
collisions and clashes.
Perhaps Bernard Abbott was right:
“We’re the
United States Government! We don’t do that
sort of thing.”
The method of governments and
courts seems to be to take out, or lock up, all our
enemies, and then they say we will have peace.
But these very acts make even more enemies, and
so the cycle continues.
And so we have peace initiatives, peace summits,
rallies for peace, peace marches, peace symbols,
and peace signs. But even with all this focus on
peace, the world doesn’t seem to experience even a
moment of peace.
Zooming in, our own lives reveal much the same:
inner conflict, external hostilities and unrest, and a
real lack of peace. Although we say with our
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