So many people seem to believe that death, destruction and domination are the only ways human problems can be solved. This appears to be particularly true for those who wield great political and economic power.
The curious logic here is that when perceived violence disrupts the peace that defines the status quo of our society, more violence is the only way peace can be restored. This is the War Paradigm that our society is still trapped in. We believe we must fight fire with fire and project “toughness.” A counter-violence with its veneer of legitimacy is seen as the remedy. This is the Orwellian myth of redemptive violence: “good violence” is the solution to “bad violence.” The coordinated use “good violence” is the exclusive right of governments and corporations. Individuals who assume that they are purveyors of “good violence” run the risk of retribution from the powers that be. Any violent opposition to government or corporate agendas is regarded as “bad violence” and will be swiftly met with “good violence” to restore “peace.” The meaning of “peace” in this context is the return to the status quo of politics, economics and social hierarchy that supports governments and corporations in carrying out their agendas and reaching their goals.
The problem, of course is that this “peace” is all too often based on the imposition of varying degrees of inequality on the general population resulting in the subjugation of many in order to provide for the privileges of the few. As Martin Luther King stated years ago, this is when “peace becomes obnoxious.” When this is the case, it is our duty to become “disturbers of the peace.” We must become compassionate disrupters of the malignant indifference that looks like “business as usual.” Conscience requires that we do all that we can to make this toxic complacency as viscerally uncomfortable as possible.
There are times when following one’s conscience will lead one to actively oppose systemic evil. There are situations we will find ourselves in when conscience will not allow us to do nothing. These times, these circumstances of gross injustice, abject cruelty and blatant de-humanization activate conscience in such a way that passivity becomes impossible.
The current dominance of State and corporate entities is based on a deeply flawed understanding of human nature. They perceive human nature as fundamentally “bad” and therefore needing to be controlled by force in some way. This projection of force may be quite subtle or painfully obvious but the goal is the same: control. Human beings are seen as essentially separate from each other and locked in perpetual competition for everything. The government-corporate system subscribes to the notion that life is a “zero sum game.” They deny or dismiss the notion that human beings have qualities beyond the materialistic paradigm. In other words: modern capitalism.
Framing the human experience as one of necessary and inevitable competition maintains the current structure of human society. It conditions us to accept a particular story about who we are and what we can expect from ourselves and each other. It is reasoned that we must successfully compete in order to get what we need and want in order to survive and enjoy our lives. Just as important is the fact that this arrangement rewards us with feeling good about ourselves when we are successful enough in our competitions. Being a “winner” is extolled in American culture and other cultures worldwide.
The problem with the competition framework for human society is that in order to have a “winner” there has to be a “loser.” What does it mean to “lose” in this context? It means that you don’t get what you want and maybe not what you need. If “winning” helps us to feel good about ourselves, “losing” does the opposite. What happens to someone who experiences themself as a “loser”? If it happens enough, “learned helplessness” will take hold and defeat is increasingly accepted. This allows those who are successful to feel justified in labelling those who aren’t as “lazy.” In American culture, “losing” is all too often regarded as shameful, as an indication that there is something seriously wrong with a person. Too much internalized shame sets the stage for expressions of violence. This violence may be physical or non-physical, it may be overt or covert and it may be directed externally or internally.
Thus those in positions of power implicitly, and sometimes quite explicitly, assure themselves that they are superior humans and are naturally entitled to manage (i.e. dominate) their “inferiors.” They are perennial subscribers to the philosophy of Us and Them. Call them the 1%, the Elite or the Ruling Class. Whatever the label, this comparatively small but highly privileged and powerful group maintains a monopoly on the use of sanctioned violence. They usually want to maintain the privileges they enjoy by whatever means necessary. This invariably involves the use of some materialistic power at their disposal.
So what does conscience require of us when the odds are so stacked against us?
Albert Einstein tells us:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
We must engage with the problem at a different level of consciousness. A paradigm shift is needed. We cannot hope to fight fire with fire. Violence cannot solve violence. Materialistic power cannot dismantle materialistic power. A different kind of power is necessary. We must find the right kind of water to put out the fire.
Conscience requires that we live in alignment with the truth to the best of our abilities. It requires that we whole-heartedly love each other, ourselves and those who we imagine to be our enemies. It functions as an organic GPS guidance system that directs us to live according to our values and to recognize the deeper truth of who we are and reject the limitations and falsehoods of materialistic extremism.
The deeper truth of our identity was well expressed in the 20th century by theologian and scientist Teilhard de Chardin, the mystic Georges Gurdjieff and more recently author Wayne Dyer who are all credited as stating some variation of the following:
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
If we can accept and embrace this as real, then we must recognize that there are many who don’t. If this is true, it means that many are unaware of who they really are and are acting from a false sense of identity. This false sense of personal reality is the myopic perspective of extreme materialism which sees human beings as nothing more than biochemical machines who are locked in perpetual competition with each other, trapped in a world with insufficient resources.
Conscience requires that we do all that we can to help not only ourselves but those who remain hypnotized by this false worldview.
If we accept the validity of this perspective then creative, principled nonviolence is the most rational strategy we can employ. Conscientious non-cooperation is a starting point. We must become fully aware of how we have become complicit with systemic injustice and end our complicity as publicly as possible. Freedom is exercised here as an expression of conscience. This is also a highly practical matter with respect to how we use our money. This is important because money is the language that government and the corporate world best understand. It is what they take seriously.
It has been said that the federal budget is a moral document. The budget shows what the government values and what it doesn’t. It is time we look at our personal bank accounts and financial investments the same way. Is our money saved, spent or invested in such a way that it is supporting death, destruction or domination? Is our financial advantage causing someone else’s poverty? Does our way of life depend on the suffering of others?
Sometimes it will be enough to consciously and publicly withdraw our complicity. We can choose to withdraw our financial support from those perpetrating injustice and de-humanization. However, sometimes more is needed in the form aggressive nonviolent public action. Aggressive nonviolence is not a contradiction in terms. Rather, it is an accurate description of the kinds of public actions employed by Gandhi and King. It was also emblematic of many of the public works of Jesus of Nazareth. It may be necessary to directly challenge the systems of power that impose injustice and that we do this with relentless compassion for those acting on behalf of such repressive systems. While being fully aware of the great harm being done we insist on loving the human beings involved. We must fully recognize and acknowledge the humanity of those who are serving those political and economic systems. Conveying hostility or shaming them is a serious mistake. They are not the enemy. They are potential allies in the making. They should be respected as such.
Conscience requires that we stop de-humanizing each other and that we start re-humanizing each other with all due haste. Such public actions of conscience seek to achieve a kind of moral resonance with those who have become trapped in their pain and their fear. These actions are not to be done to shame those who are trapped, although too often this is what happens. Those who think they stand on some moral high ground when they shout “Shame on you!” at those whom they imagine to be their enemies do so out of deep misunderstanding and ignorance of how counter-productive this is. Rather, public actions of aggressive nonviolence must aim at the reinvigoration of the true, compassionate humanity of all individuals and communities.
Conscience insists that we reject the toxic fictions of “Us and Them” and “Might Makes Right” that creates disposable people and objectifies and profanes our world. Conscience inspires us to move beyond the cancers of hyper-individualism, toxic masculinity, white supremacy, colonialism and “survival of the fittest.” It reveals the illusion of separateness and illuminates the reality of our connection to each other and all of creation. Conscience proclaims that all life is sacred and that we have a responsibility to behave accordingly.
It is long past time to stop calling what’s going on in Gaza a “war.” On October 7, 2023 the Israeli government essentially got “sucker punched” and has responded with a staggering campaign of death and devastation. I am by no means excusing or minimizing the killing of approximately 1200 Israeli citizens and the abduction of others yet the extreme disproportionality of the Israeli government’s response is truly shocking. It is as if someone decided that the death of one Israeli human being must be answered for by the death of one thousand Palestinian human beings.
This is not a war. It’s the indiscriminate slaughter of human beings living in Gaza. What is being perpetrated against them is nothing less than State-sanctioned mass murder. It is the war crime of all war crimes. It’s an on-going genocide that is painfully obvious unless one has the capacity and willingness to enter a state of massive denial in order to not see it or believe it.
It is no exercise in excuse-making to put this event in its proper context. The history of conflict between Israel and Palestine did not begin in the autumn of 2023. It goes back at least to 1948 when the Nakba (“catastrophe”) began. This word refers to the process of “ethnic cleansing” in which the homes and villages of Palestinian people were taken or destroyed and those people who did not meet the criteria of being Jewish or Israeli were forcibly displaced with many becoming refugees. This process has waxed and waned since 1948 but it has not stopped. Current data indicates that there are approximately 6,000,000 Palestinian human beings officially recognized as refugees.
We would do well to ask ourselves how desperate we would be if we were the ones existing under such conditions with that history of oppression and degradation on our backs. We might be just as desperate. When people feel desperate enough they will tend to act out of their desperation rather than from wisdom or compassion. Is that what happened on 7 October?
The bitter irony of this genocide is that it is being carried out by a nation that was created as a direct consequence of the holocaust of World War II in which millions of European Jews (and others) were horrifically tortured and murdered by a fascist government. Does the historical oppression and attempted annihilation of human beings who identified as Jewish, translate into a license for the government of Israel to perpetrate its own version of oppression and annihilation against fellow human beings who identify as Palestinians? Amazingly, it appears that for enough people with enough political and economic power the answer is a resounding Yes.
An important distinction needs to be made between a nation’s government and its people. This needs to be emphasized because it is a mistake to assume that a nation’s government truly represents the people who live in it. Governments, of course, like to portray themselves as leaders who carry out the will of their people but simply because government leaders claim something doesn’t automatically make it true. Without this distinction it becomes all too easy to blur that line and blame a people for the actions of their government.
“Israel has the right to defend itself” is the justification repeated ad nauseam by politicians and pundits alike to apply a veneer of legitimacy to what the Israeli government and military have been doing to the people of Gaza. How exactly does the indiscriminate mass murder of ordinary people, many of them children, qualify as “defending oneself”? Another question that is rarely, if ever, publicly asked is whether the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves. Do they have a right to self-defense that is equal to that which is ascribed to the nation of Israel? Perhaps the deafening public silence on this point is an implicit assertion that the Palestinian people have no such right.
What does this mean for those of us living in the comparatively safe and comfortable United States? We do not have to worry about being bombed from above or being shot by soldiers in our hometowns. While life in America is certainly not serenity and bliss for all of its inhabitants, it is hard to imagine that any of us would want to trade places with those in Gaza now.
What if it’s possible for us to love the places we call home and have no less love for those who live in the places they call home, wherever that may be? What if we can accept that the idea of “nations” and “countries” are artificial constructs that have no organic or sacred reality? Can we understand that these are merely stories that we have created to give ourselves a sense of group identity and group safety?
When astronauts looked at our planet from space they did not see separate countries with national borders. Instead they saw our little blue world floating silently through an unbelievably vast universe. They saw through the absurdity of the artificial divisions we organize our lives around. They saw the illusion for what it was.
The United States of America was initially formed as a constitutional republic to be based on democratic principles. Tragically, it has devolved into an oligarchy based on sociopathic principles. This assertion is not merely conjecture but is supported by research conducted in 2014 by professors from Princeton University and Northwestern University. These researchers studied data and came to this conclusion.
Our government is supposed to be “of the people, by the people and for the people” but has instead become a government of, by and for a group of corporations that hold excessive influence over it. It has become a handmaid to the military industrial complex, to Big Oil, to Big Pharma and the like. It sells itself to these entities and sells out its people again and again.
What happened to us?
Regardless of how many layers of disinformation and phony mythologizing that political and corporate powers may promote, some core truths about us remain intact:
Everyone belongs. No one is disposable. War is not normal nor is it a “way of life.”
These truths may be deemed “bad for business” by centers of materialistic power who act according to highly myopic self-interest but that does not diminish their truthfulness. If “doing business” means that people are regarded as disposable, that “us” versus “them” is how we must see the people of the world and that conflict must be resolved by killing, then the “bottom line” will only read: Complete Annihilation.
Many who call America their home are deeply horrified by the relentless and pervasive mass murder of the people who call Gaza their home. Many yearn to do something to stop the carnage. Many have contacted their senators and representatives. Many have demonstrated in public spaces. Despite significant public opposition to the actions of the Israeli government, the United States’ government remains steadfast in its support for its political ally. It continues to provide more weapons, more military equipment and more financial support to the Israeli government. This bounty of destructive resources are then used to kill innocent civilians, destroy their homes, obliterate hospitals and places of worship. It is the systematic erasure of all that was once Palestine. The United Nations would have passed a ceasefire resolution except for the United States exercising its veto power to prevent it. The United States has now vetoed such a resolution three times since October 7, 2023.
The United States government is supporting genocide.
It is doing so by unflinchingly and uncritically providing the government of Israel with the most modern and lethal weapons of war without which it could not do what it is now doing in Gaza. The U.S. government is also providing considerable psychological support to the Israeli government. This form of support emboldens the government of Israel to do as it wishes because it understands that it has the backing of the most powerful military anywhere on the planet. Understandably, Israel’s government may confidently believe that, with U.S. backing, no one can stop them. Who will even try?
We who live in America who do not hold positions of power within dominant corporations or our government, who see and understand the moral implications of what our government is doing are painfully forced to arrive at a very sobering conclusion:
It was Veteran’s Day in Hartford, Connecticut. As members of Veterans for Peace, we greeted the thousands of basketball fans making their way into the XL Center (formerly the Hartford Civic Center) to attend the game between the defending national champion UConn Huskies and their opponents from Stonehill College. The stadium’s main entrance still bears its original moniker: Veterans Memorial Coliseum. It was a brisk but not brutally cold November morning. We met them with our voices, our signs, our flags and a Tibetan singing bowl that one of our members rang throughout the hour as we called attention to the devastation unfolding in Gaza. We wished them an enjoyable time at the game and we wished them all a happy Armistice Day. We also urged the crowd to be aware of what was happening so far away and to take whatever action they could to stop the horror. As it always does, violence begets violence. It becomes its own narcotic.
We wondered how many of these basketball fans actually knew about the history of Armistice Day and how it became Veteran’s Day in the mid 1950’s. Did they know that it was originally a day to celebrate and promote peace as World War I ended? Did they know why it had been renamed Veteran’s Day? The stated purpose of this change was to emphasize the sacrifice of all veterans of all wars in our nation’s history. The actual effect was to shift the focus from peace to war and to equate war with patriotism while implying that opposing war and/or being for peace is somehow unpatriotic.
We noticed how few of those making their way into the XL Center would even look at us let alone react to us as we called for an immediate ceasefire and as we attempted to bear witness to the death and destruction occurring in Gaza. A few people did nod and smile at us. A few thanked us for promoting peace. A few grumbled cynically about the idea of a ceasefire but the vast majority just walked on by as if we weren’t there. It was both interesting and disheartening to experience this apparent indifference.
I wondered why it was so difficult for them to even look at us. I wondered if this avoidance of eye contact was related to an intuitive desire to not feel something too uncomfortable to feel. I wondered.
Many have described what is going on in Gaza as a genocide in progress. Genocide is not a word to be used casually. In 1951 the United Nations held a convention to established a definition of genocide. It put forth a definition which states that “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”: It then lists the acts as follows:
Killings members of the group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
You may decide for yourself to what extent these criteria are being met currently in Gaza.
I thought about the Holocaust and the question so many have asked themselves: How would I act in a society under fascist rule? Would I lash out at my oppressors or would I simply try to survive at all costs? Would I actively resist or would I make myself invisible? Would I have hidden and protected Anne Frank’s family or would I have turned them in to the Nazis to save my own skin?
Like most, I tell myself that I would do the right thing. I would resist the coercion and intimidation with every fibre of my being. I wouldn’t cave in to the pressure to cooperate with the oppressors. Or would I? I don’t actually know. I’ve never lived under such conditions.
The question of how we might act while a genocide is under way is no longer a merely theoretical one. It is happening in Gaza now. As of early December, 2023 there have been over 15,000 deaths of people who once lived in Gaza. Many of those were children. How many more uncounted deaths there are remains to be seen. Still more will die as life-sustaining resources have been cut off from the people of Gaza. Many will die of disease and starvation.
Many Americans are looking at their government’s extensive support for what the Israeli government is doing to the people of Gaza. Undoubtably, some Americans believe that the United States’ support of Israel is appropriate and justified. Even so, many others are wondering if the American government’s support is wrong and immoral. Certainly some Americans have painfully concluded that their government is complicit in a genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinians living in Gaza. How bizarrely ironic it is to see one nation that emerged from the tyranny and oppression of the British monarchy in the 18th Century and a nation that emerged out of the Holocaust of the 20th Century teaming up in the 21st Century to try to annihilate an impoverished group of human beings living in Gaza under an apartheid system that the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once described as being comparable to South Africa’s.
It’s easy to understand why many of us feel powerless and disconnected from what our government does. Coincidentally or not, most Americans have become passive observers and perhaps even disinterested non-observers. We have our 21st century version of “bread and circuses” to keep us distracted and mollified. Many complain about being “taxed to death” yet how many of us realize how most of our tax dollars go straight into the Pentagon and then quickly into the coffers of corporations that provide the U.S. military with its weapons and related technology? American corporations provide a large percentage of all weapons of war manufactured worldwide. Death and Destruction: Made in the U.S.A.
How many of us are completely unaware of how obscenely profitable these corporations are and how they grow ever more wealthy and powerful as a result of the death and devastation they deliver? These corporations thrive on war. They incentivize war. War is good for their investors. To put it simply, war is very good for their business.
What language do such corporations understand? What convinces a corporation to stop doing what it’s doing? How do we reconcile the legalized fiction that declares that corporations are “people” while at the same time these “people” are absolved of any moral responsibility regarding their behavior? Are corporations subordinate to government or is government subordinate to them? If it is the latter, are we right to be cynical about the role of government to represent the will of the people and to act in support their well-being? If Big Government is actually the handmaid of Big Business it means that the high ideals of “liberty and justice for all” have been reduced to a marketing strategy to frame whatever government does at the behest of corporate power as something patriotic and justified.
These are some of the things I wonder about. I wish I had all the clear and correct answers to my questions. Maybe my questions aren’t even the right questions.
Our time of bearing witness comes to an end. It’s game time and there are just a few late arrivals hastily entering the XL Center. Our little group gathers and prepares to have lunch together.
It’s fair for you to ask if a small group of peace-mongers attempting to disturb the complacency of the general population is enough to make a difference. In one sense it is obviously not enough. I can easily imagine many of those basketball fans feeling briefly perplexed at why we even bothered to show up and protest the devastation of Gaza. They may think: “No one is listening to you.” They might be right about that. And yet there is something inside that says: “Do it anyway! This is what you need to do.” It says: “Don’t stop! Do more!”
And that “something inside” won’t take “no” for an answer.
I hope you, your family and all who you love and care about are well and happy.
I write to you today out of deep concern for the state of our country and of the world to which we all belong. We are living in interesting times to say the least and humankind has never been in greater danger.
As I’m sure you know, we are living in a climate crisis that is escalating before our very eyes and it is doing so faster than we expected. The summer of 2023 has seen record-setting heat. Texas is sweltering, Vermont has endured devastating floods, Canada is on fire and the world’s oceans are growing warmer and warmer. I know your administration has acknowledged this crisis and taken some action to address the situation but honestly, so much more is needed.
How can it be that as the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world and with all the resources at our disposal we are not doing so much more? We could be leading the way to a world that will be truly livable for all of us. Is it possible that our government which was meant to be of The People, by The People and for The People has been taken hostage by corporate power? Is this what stops us? It will cost too much money? Prioritizing profits over people is a 21st century Golden Calf. We worship this idol at our own peril.
As if the climate crisis isn’t enough, scientists have recently set the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight. We have never been closer to self-annihilation. The threat of thermonuclear suicide for all of humanity, indeed, for all life on our one little planet has never been more dire. Is it possible, Mr. President, that we have lost our appreciation for the staggering magnitude of how devastating these weapons really are? Do any of our military leaders actually believe that these weapons can be used in a “tactical” manner? Honestly sir, that notion is completely delusional. If we or anyone else uses a thermonuclear weapon we all lose in a very big way.
More broadly Mr. President, how is it that in the 21st century we still believe that militarism is the way to resolve conflicts? We cloak this belief with a faux rationality yet war is arguably the most irrational of all human behaviors. Believing that that we will get peace from war is like believing that if we plant apple seeds we will get trees that give us oranges. We reap what we sow and if we continue to sow the seeds of destruction we will get destruction. And yet…..we persist.
War, of course, cannot be separated from the climate crisis. As I’m sure you are aware, sir, the United States military has a carbon footprint larger than that of several countries. Our armed forces pollute the land, air and water that all life depends on. They do this with impunity. This is unacceptable if we are to bequeath a livable world to our children and grandchildren.
Lastly, Mr. President, can we please stop pretending that America is God? There have been too many episodes in our nation’s history where we have acted as if we were the Almighty wielding the power to end life. In World War II our firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo revealed our willingness to target civilians as did our use of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our use of napalm in Vietnam likewise made no distinction between military targets and innocent civilians. The My Lai massacre remains an ugly stain on our nation’s history. Too many still believe in the pernicious lie of “American exceptionalism” and use it to falsely justify their destructive agendas. They conflate a twisted concept of patriotism with Divine Leadership. This is a highly toxic combination. It is a cult-like dynamic. It is a way of death, not life.
Yes, let us love our country. Yes, let us respect our nation and the high ideals that gave birth to it. But let us not become hostage to the dishonest nonsense of “American exceptionalism” which is nothing but a modern re-branding of Manifest Destiny. It is as arrogant as it is wrong and it is high time that we officially and publicly reject it.
Let us be patriotic but not at the cost of being ensnared by “Us vs. Them” thinking. Our patriotism needs to be fully inclusive such that the full spectrum of human diversity is embraced, honored and respected. Let us remember that any “patriotism” that is devoid of humility and historical honesty is nothing but cheap propaganda.
In 1953 President Eisenhower made a speech in which he said:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
What President Eisenhower said 70 years ago is even more true today. The Military Industrial Complex he warned us about has consumed American society and has made us a nation addicted to war. This addiction has infiltrated virtually every aspect of our society. Our recovery from this addiction is one of our most difficult and necessary tasks. If we do not rise to meet this challenge, we will meet the fate of all addicts who do not recover. We will suffer and die. This need not be our fate Mr. President. Together we are more than capable of meeting every adversity the Road to Recovery puts before us but to do so means that we will need to make room for a new consciousness to grow within us both individually and collectively. We can choose to humble ourselves or we can be filled with pride before our fall. We need to recall and reclaim our true identities as members of a sacred human family whose kinship transcends all the false and superficial barriers that have been the source of so much of humankind’s pain and suffering.
Mr. President, we have so much healing work to do as a nation. I know that this is a very heavy burden for you to bear and it cannot be yours to bear alone. Each of us must shoulder it as best we can. Recovery must happen in the community of America and in the larger global community. None may be excluded. We have many amends to make to our own citizens, to citizens of other nations and to nature itself. It is imperative for us to do this work so that we can truly be free. We will not be free otherwise. We have done great harm to so many and we need to assume full responsibility for our actions. We must make meaningful reparations for all the injuries we have caused. We need to start now.
Thank you sir, for your kind patience and consideration of my concerns.
“I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.” — Father Brown in The Queer Feet by G. K. Chesterton.
The year 2008 was a very eventful year in my life. For the first time ever I was genuinely interested in Presidential politics due to my enthusiasm for the candidacy of Dr. Ron Paul. I registered as a Republican in Massachusetts because I wanted to vote for him in the primary. I was working with several like-minded friends and we endorsed him on our website. I marched in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston with an enthusiastic contingent carrying a Ron Paul banner.
Dr. Paul’s campaign uniquely and courageously emphasized two issues that had always been most important in my mind — abortion and war. He condemned abortion because it violated the right to life (as protected by the Constitution) of innocent babies and what’s more he had a practical plan for how to actually curtail it based on states’ rights. In addition Ron Paul was an anti-interventionist advocate of peace at a time when the U.S. government was hyper-interventionist and aggressively warlike.
Of course, Dr. Paul did not win the nomination, but in November 2008, for the first time in my life, I cast a vote for President by writing in his name on my ballot.
But something else happened that year which is even more significant to me, even astonishing, and the two events are connected. I decided suddenly and unexpectedly to return to the Catholic Church, after an absence of about 40 years, when I read an article on the lewrockwell.com website by a Dr. G. C. Dilsaver.
At this point some background information is necessary.
In 1981 the United Nations declared by unanimous resolution that September 21 be recognized as The International Day of Peace. This is a “globally shared date for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace.” (see: internationaldayofpeace.org).
Why is “building a Culture of Peace” so hard for us?
Every reasonably intelligent person will say that they want peace and yet a Culture of Peace eludes us. At this point many a reasonably intelligent person will also reflexively qualify their desire for Peace with some form of the following: “…but we can’t have Peace as long as they…”. So the work to establish a Culture of Peace stalls.
“Who do you think you are?” is usually expressed as the indignant rejection of an insult but if we consider it as a serious question for ourselves to answer, it may shed some light on why it’s so difficult for us to establish that Culture of Peace.
Maybe we think we are inherently a violent and warlike species. Maybe we think it’s “in our genes” and that “we can’t help it.” Maybe we believe that, despite our best efforts, we are killers from a long line of killers.
That is the Old Story.
This is the story of us, locked into a world of toxic competition in which some must “lose” in life in order for others to “win.” It’s the concept that supports capitalism as we know it and keeps us in seemingly endless wars.
But is this who we really are?
There is a New Story (see: mettacenter.org) of humanity that is emerging. This story paints a very different picture of who we are. It shows us that, at our core, we are actually good rather than evil. We are inclined to cooperate and help each other succeed in life. We see this truth emerge again and again when some sort of disaster strikes (remember how people treated each other right after 9/11?) and our differences are quickly put aside. For however brief a time, we see each other clearly. We see each other as fellow human beings instead of as members of some artificial category.
Creating a Culture of Peace becomes not only possible but natural when we start to remember who we really are and start letting go of the false narratives that hold us prisoner.
As a means to reaching this end there is the concept of the two hands of Real Peace. One hand is closed and says “I oppose your injustice and destructiveness” while the other hand is open and says: “I’m open to you as a person.” This is a realistic practice. We can affirm the humanity of every person without exception while standing firmly against all systems that oppress any person anywhere.
This Real Peace rests on the foundation of our relationships with each other. These relationships form the bonds of our inter-connected nature. That is where our real security begins and how it thrives. It is not our neighbor’s fear of us that makes us feel safe. We feel safe with each other because, in some way, we see each our neighbor as family. Security is the result of knowing that what happens to any family member happens to all family members. We have defined “family” in an exceedingly narrow way for far too long. That needs to change and change fast.
Building a Culture of Peace does not mean that we will live in a conflict-free world. There will be conflict well into the future as long as human beings are involved with each other. What it does mean is that we solve our problems without resorting to violence. It means we recognize that the problem is the problem and not that people are the problem. It means that we give up the illogical belief that hurting others, or ourselves, is a viable way to resolve conflicts.
Building a Culture of Peace is both realistic and natural for the human family when we understand who we are in relationship to each other. We hold ourselves back from this realization by continuing to cling to our artificial categories of identification. We imagine that we are members of a particular nation, religion, political party, profession or class. No such category gets close to the depth of who we really are as beings. That would be like going for your regular medical check-up and having your doctor assess your health by examining the clothes you’re wearing. It doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.
If we want to establish a Culture of Peace in human society we will need to establish that culture within ourselves as part of the process. We need to heal the injuries sustained by our fragile humanness by claiming the truth of our own sacredness. Not only our own but the sacredness of everyone else as well. There is no one who isn’t. This sacredness is by no means limited to human beings. It encompasses all of creation.
We get to the heart of the matter when we recognize the sacredness of All. There we will find the Culture of Peace.
In it, he said: “It is beyond dispute that nuclear weapons — a single bomb capable of killing 140,000 in Hiroshima and 75,000 in Nagasaki — changed the military dimension of the war. The atomic bomb made it clear that every major city in Japan could be obliterated with a few dozen American sorties. The unconditional surrender of Japan thus followed swiftly.”
He is wrong. Maybe he should listen to members of the military at the time, some with titles like Admiral and General and names like MacArthur, Eisenhower and Nimitz, to understand the “military dimension” of the use of the nuclear bombs on Japan.
It’s sad when we have to rely on the LameStream news of Yahoo/LA Times to help us unequivocally understand the horrors of war, over the FakeNews of a supposedly Catholic publication:
I would like to show you an activist strategy to rein in militarism. The foundational concept is an update of the teach-in model. Activists will hold sessions at home to show short videos posted on You Tube to small groups. “Graduates” of these one evening schools will hold their own teach-ins. Quickly hundreds of new volunteers could become active in all major metro areas. Exponentially growth is an amazing thing.
This strategy can be affordably managed by as few as six activists per urbanized region. The intent is to pressure US officials to ratchet back on nuclear weapons, war making, and domestic surveillance. (In truth, only ONE person per city is necessary to launch the project.)
This plan is based on two successful tactics … house parties, that can function as 21st century “teach-ins”, and citizen lawmaking, which is used to reset local policies in Texas and elsewhere. An anti-corruption group, Represent.Us, is already having remarkable success with the latter tactic. The plan can quickly scale-up to the 50 states. I estimate 900 new volunteers could be on board in six months. In every major city! But, even if only 300 per city sign up that is more than enough.
P.S. To learn more about the power of the Represent.Us game plan look for this brief video on their website: “The Strategy to End Corruption”https://act.represent.us/sign/our-strategy/
Have you been listening to the podcast? If so, then maybe you can tell me what’s going on here, and how this thread on Twitter pretty much summarizes everything that we’ve been talking about on the podcast, especially with Fr. McCarthy, for the last year!
