John F. Kennedy’s speech on Peace was given as a commencement address June 10, 1963 – nearly 60 years ago at American University. The dream of peace has never been achieved but is always worth pursuing. 

Please skip to 2:30 to hear the section on peace. 3 more minutes from there.

’Tis that time of year when people of all religions and philosophies dream the dreams of the possibilities of what could come. Of course perhaps the ultimate dream for all is peace. Without the constant threat of war what could man achieve? That has always been the ideal.

So here we go into another holiday season with idealism busting out all over. But as usual in reality the greed and ambition of humans renders the ideals impotent while plans to conquer enemies and perceived enemies are what really dance in the heads of humans.

Here in the US we are just now starting to come to grips with what was really behind last January 6th’s attempted overthrow of our own system of government by enemies from within. As the leaders and perpetrators continue to walk free without punishment, they will continue to work to further the overthrow of our system of government  by whatever means they can.

As Founding Father Benjamin Franklin noted, “we have a Republic if we can keep it.” Now we find ourselves in one of the gravest crises in our nation’s history. We are literally at the “can we keep it stage?” stage. 

Without peace, without the stabilization of our form of government, all we have cared for will go away and man’s greatest experiment in self governing will fade with the sands of time.