Sunrise Spiritual Harmony and William Thomas
1440 N Street, N.W., Apt. 410
Washington, D.C. 20005
Honorable Louis F. Oberdorfer
U.S. District Court
400 John Marshall Place
Washington, D.C. 20001
March 27, 1989
Dear Sir:
Peace, peace on earth, good will to all living creatures.
It can honestly be said that we have not tried so much
to win points as we have tried to attain understanding. Your patience
illustrates that you are a decent man, with concern for the same
principles which motivate us, and that the only difficulties dividing
us are differing perceptions of one reality.
Admittedly, there have been times when we've thought that
this legal marathon has been little more than a pointless clanging
of words, one against another. The ideas which, in the perception
of the writers, are Supreme, seem lost, from your perception,
in an incoherent din of clanging words. I.e., "living accommodations,"
"living WITHOUT accommodations."
Experience seems to show -- and may explain our major hurdle
in achieving understanding -- that what one may think sharply
written may be perceived as dull in anothers' reading.
Thomas v. News World Communications, the writer's
thought, drew a sharp contrast between "peace through understanding"
and "peace through strength." In your Opinion dismissing
News World (68l F.Supp. 55-74 (1988)) you did not explain
why "peace through strength" was preferable to "peace
through reason." We still choose to assume that our inartful
writing skills account for the fact that what we perceive as a
striking ideological difference remains, it seems from your Opinion,
not worthy of comment.
Then we thought that Sunrise's Objection to the Presentence
Report in Cr. 88-235 made a pointed distinction between "world
peace" and "peace on earth." Your reaction to that
document makes it seem our "point" was blunt, but we
do not perceive that your Opinion articulates any reason to blunt
our point.
Perhaps the enclosed advertisement from Friday's Washington
Post may bring us closer to understanding.
You will note that, in addition to the words "God,"
"freedom," "liberty," "human rights,"
etc., Mr. Moon also speaks of "world peace." All these
words have a very nice clang to them, but, in our glossary "world
peace" is defined as "order" imposed on the individual
from the outside, and is synonymus with "police state,"or,
as defined in Sunrise's Objection, "hell."
We believe "Peace on Earth" must originate within
the individual and is only realized when all individuals radiate
it.
Thus, "Peace through Strength" is to "world
peace" as "Peace through Understanding" is to "Peace
on Earth."
In the writers' perception the practical application of
the "Peace through Strength" ideology was observed at
a rally held in Lafayette Park to commemorate the downing of Korean
Airlines flight 007, when Mr. Bo Hi Pak, chairman of News World
Communications, Inc., and Mr. Moon's co-defendant in Thomas
v. News World Communications, led a chant of "Kill Communists."
Killing any "ists" exemplifies the "world peace"
tactic of imposing "order" through violence from without.
Although Mr. Moon's advertisement, repeatedly mentions
"God," the idea of killing makes it evident that "God"
has an entirely different meaning to Mr. Moon, his writers, and
these writers.
Unless we are mistaken both the words "ideology,"
"religion," and "propaganda" were all words
which appeared more than once in Thomas v. News World Communications.
May God guide us all in wisdom,