BE A PEACEMONGER

For more years than most people have lived, I have been an outside observer of the machinations of our government, and still I don’t fully understand how it is that well intentioned people who finally achieve election to high office become enemies of the world’s well-being.

This morning I listened to an interview with Senator Jim Webb, a man who often makes sense in his statements. He was talking about how he could reconcile his antipathy for the Iraq war with his feelings when his son elected to join the military and take part in that war even though he doesn’t support it. He talked of his family’s long history of service in the military from the American revolution on down and of how his father, a military man himself, tried to keep Webb from going to Viet Nam because he disagreed with administrative policy and abuse of power through misuse of troops at the time. Now Webb disagrees with administrative policy and feels the troops are being misused, too, but he reconciles these feelings with his fears for his son’s well-being by rationalizing (my word, not his) that a soldier – someone who has the moral fortitude to fight for his country – has no choice but to follow orders and do his best to bring his people home alive. Webb also mentioned that his feelings and actions as a father were different from his feelings and actions as a Senator, but didn’t elaborate on what a Senator could or should do.

To me this is insanity. Three generations willing to risk their lives for causes in which they do not believe is not a sign of patriotism. It is putting blind faith in a system that has proven time and again to be unworthy of that trust.

As a family, the Webbs are committing the same error that we as society make every time we honor commitment to military service above commitment to moral justice. To offer blind support for a government that consistently acts only in concert with its own economic interests while ignoring the interests, needs, and well-being of the citizenry of the world and even its own citizens is not to stand on the high moral ground. It is, on the contrary, to take the low road of repressing one’s own instinctive distaste for Machiavellian principles in order to embrace the socially blessed image of the patriot willing to “die for one’s country”. No one dies for one’s country except in defense when that country is under direct attack. In every other case, we are asked to die for our country’s economic interests, and it is high time that we refused to do it.

I have recently begun reading a book that will most likely end up next to “Flyboys” on my list of required reading for all citizens. It is John Perkins’, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”. In it he describes his recruitment, training and actions as an EHM as he and his colleagues call themselves. It’s worth a read just to learn about the existence and day-to-day doings of these folks, but he also includes a good bit of information about the effects of what they do, and the only conclusion a sane person can draw from it all is that our country has long been embarked on a soulless journey that drags everyone it touches through unnecessary hell. Our politicians spout high and mighty morality stories, but the results of their actions are pure evil.

Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

“Today we see the results of this system run amok. Executives at our most respected companies hire people at near-slave wages to toil under inhuman conditions in Asisan sweatshops. Oil companies wantonly pump toxins into rain forest rivers, consciously killing people, animals, and plants, and committing genocide among ancient cultures. The pharmaceutical industry denies lifesaving medicines to millions of HIV-infected Africans. Twelve million families in our own United States worry about their next meal. The energy industry creates an Enron. The accounting industry creates and Andersen. The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world’s population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995. The United States spends over $87 billion conducting a war in Iraq while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount we could provide clean water, adequate diet, sanitation services, and basic education to every person on the planet.

And we wonder why terrorists attack us?”

Putting your life on the line so we can rape another country is not patriotism, it is madness. Isn’t it time we stopped? If we want to show our patriotism, why not show it to the world and not just to one country? Why not stand up and shout, “Enough?”


That’s right. I’m a peacemonger, and the reactions my neighbors have to my behavior amaze me. People in America are more afraid of peace than they are of war. I guess it is human nature to be more comfortable with the devil you know than the angel you’ve never seen. That’s why John Lennon’s plea still rings out – Give peace a chance. Isn’t it time we did? After all, what have we got to lose?

Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR