Cultural Event Essay- Mike FarrellOn September twenty-fourth, two thousand and three at seven-thirty p.m. in the Berks PSC auditorium, Mike Farrell gave a lecture on his views on the death penalty and prison reform. You would probably know Farrell for being on the hit TV historic M*A*S*H series as “B.J. Hunnicutt.” Or you may know him as producer of Universal Picture’s Patch Adams, or even as a star in NBC’s hit television series Providence. Farrell has also been a spokesperson for CONCERN/America, which is a nongovernmental, nonprofit development and refugee organization. He is a co-chair of the California Committee of Human Rights Watch, a chair of the Death Penalty Focus, and a Good Will Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Mike Farrell also has a history of being involved in many positive things for society. He traveled to El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras to take part in human right delegations and to take part in multiple aid missions. He is a human rights activist, and he’s a refugee aid. He went to the U.S.S.R., Paraguay and Chile as a result of representing the delegation in the testimony before the U.S. Congress. In 1980, he worked with CONCERN sites on the Thai/Cambodian border. In 1988, he went to Egypt, Syria, Israel and Jordan to work on Peace in the Middle East. In 1990, he took part in the international election observers for the first free post-war elections in Czechoslovakia in Prague. Then, he helped medical programs for children which took him to the Middle East in 1992. In the 1990’s, Mike Farrell took part in the HRW, or Human Rights Watch. The HRW took him to the borders of the United States and Mexico in the states of California and Arizona. Today, Farrell is organizing and supporting campaigns to help save specific individuals, to educate the public, and to raise awareness to the unrightfully accused, the haters, and the future on improvement to all the human rights that are violated. These campaigns targeted against a triumph of fear. Therefore, the campaigns are series for the human rights crisis. Mike Farrell brought up a good point. He talked about the people on death row and how they are often unrightfully accused and usually not guilty. Death row too is populated with juveniles, retarded people, and insane people. People are very cynical, and the right from the wrong is hard to sort out. It’s also hard to find truth and oppose the wrong and to protect innocence. For example, Farrell talked of a man in Chile in 1986 who wrote unacceptable words. His wife took the time in prison for him. How can one be tried and imprisoned for something as dumb as writing unacceptable words? It costs more to execute a human being than to keep the person imprisoned for life. Manipulation is a key destroyer of people’s values and courage to love. People are easily manipulated and confused. Other people give permission to hate. How can people deal with this and not be easily influenced? People can be stronger than usual; they can denounce derogatory remarks, anchor in their beliefs, and stand for higher and better things. The answer is not in fear, but instead it is in love. If one has no values, they will easily be subjected to fear and the concept of fear destroys any hope for improvements in the values and courage to love. To improve manipulation and unlawful accusations, people need to contribute to society instead of take away from society. The secret is that the salvation of mankind is in love. That is what needs to follow every manipulation and every accusation. People need to have hope, for it is the dynamic of history. People should believe in spite of evidence, and they will watch the evidence change. People need to adopt fundamental values of international human rights and humanitarian law. During the lecture, Mike Farrell gave a lot of very interesting quotes. He said, “conquer fears, rely on strengths, and we can do anything (Farrell 9/24/03).” This holds true to anything. People who allow fear to get in the way don’t accomplish anything. Instead they allow fearing to overtake them and they continue to make unwilling actions. Farrell also said that “in every man there is a divine spark (Farrell 9/24/03).” Every man can do what he wants, and even though they may not seem like they have anything going for them, they really do. They just have to face their fears and do something that wouldn’t ordinarily be done. They will go places in the long run. People need to stand up for what they believe in and not follow the leaders. Mike Farrell’s presentation would have been better if he slowed down while speaking and touched a little more on what he thought than what other people thought. It was hard to take notes, because he moved so fast. But, his ideas and thoughts on the death penalty and human rights moved me. I really thought about what he talked about, and I didn’t realize this was going on in our world today. This isn’t right. The ones who aren’t guilty and are dieing for someone else’s sins is wrong. And the worst part is, the non-guilty people on death row can’t do anything about it. And the guilty ones get away laughing and continue to commit crimes and sins and continue to hurt more people and get away with it. This should be illegal all over the world today.
Works Cited
Farrell, Mike. Lecture. PSU Auditorium. September 24, 2003. |