THE ROAD TO PEACE

This week I attended my first Coordinating Committee meeting of the Peace Network of the Ozarks (PNO) as acting president of that organization. I put my name up for that position at the urging of Dave Davison who, being forced to give up the position as president due to pressing work issues, talked to me several times about the importance of the group within the community and the need for a strong voice for peace at its head.

Being one of the early members of PNO and always having been of the opinion that its message of thoughtful consideration of issues related to war held great value, this was a difficult argument for me to refute. I have always shied away from leadership positions, though, and was very reluctant to accept this one. The thing that decided me was the hope that I could provide a voice of reason that might ultimately be of value not only for PNO, but for the community.

The early days of PNO seemed like a no-brainer to me. I could see no reason to back a national movement toward increasing the USA’s warlike nature. While calling ourselves a peaceful nation, we have been involved in one armed conflict or another throughout my entire lifetime; while worshipping the Prince of Peace more commonly than any other deity, we have embraced arms production and sales at a level no other nation on earth has ever sought let alone achieved, and, ultimately, while saying time and again that they had no desire to go to war, the administration was building a false case for pre-emptive war against a sovereign nation that clearly posed no threat to the U.S. Understanding these things left me no choice about joining PNO.

We started off strong and could put three to four hundred people on the street to protest the obvious injustice of war on Iraq. After that war was declared interest began to wane. It became harder and harder to gather a crowd to protest the war and other transgressions committed by this administration. As the time has gone by and people have become more inured to the damage our war effort has done to America and its relationship to the world, it has become nearly impossible to draw a large crowd to any protest even though PNO still has about the same number of supporters who ask to remain on the mailing list.

People know that we are on the wrong path, but they can’t see an imminent reason to stand up and get vocal about their opposition.

Because of this, the Peace Network has been quietly evolving away from just a group gathered to protest inappropriate governmental actions and into an agency for the spread of information. As communication is probably my strongest suit, this seemed to be an appropriate time for me to step into a more visible position.

I see my role as attempting to share a belief in the need for fundamental shifts in our nation’s approach to governance and to international interaction. Please understand that I do not believe that I will ever have any effect on national policy. What I do believe, though, is that a group like PNO can affect the way the community in which it resides sees things. Further, I believe that each member of such a community who sees wisdom in proposed ideas can have an affect on other members of that community and that if the community as a whole comes to share a set of beliefs and values, it can change the thinking in other communities.

I also believe that it takes years for a sound idea to become policy in any community, so I am willing to continue the slow but inexorable process of seeding this rocky ground in the hope that some of the truths held dear by the members of PNO might take root and spread.

The direction I think PNO and its like organizations around the country must take is one in which PNO is truly a national leader. The idea that peace groups can protest enough to get those who disagree with them to come around to their position is, I think, a most unlikely proposition. Having realized the difficulty of massing people for protests here in the Ozarks over the past few years PNO, under the wise leadership of people like Joan Collins, Doris Ewing, Gene Davidson and Dave Davison, began to try instead to bring information to the Ozarks -- information that could help people to see and understand the horrible waste that war and warlike behavior cause.

Another person who has done a great deal in this area while working outside the auspices of PNO is Sue Skidmore who was instrumental in bringing in many valuable speakers including one of the nation’s finest voices of reason, ex-CIA agent and presidential advisor Ray McGovern.

My hope is to provide an inexorable, if not constant, flow of information intended to help people to understand the devastation of our national policy of spending more on “defense” than the other five of the world’s biggest military spenders combined. My fervent hope is that our nation will come to understand that our wealth could be spent in many better ways that would not only help to improve the quality of life for the people of the world, but also would improve our national security beyond anything a new bomb can do. My deepest hope is that this will happen by choice rather than being forced upon our grandchildren by the impoverishment of the world in the name of military might.

Our planet is at risk not only from the direct danger of war including potential nuclear warfare, but from the nature of the world economy. Our reliance on the production and use of arms and the production, purchase and use of petroleum is the primary reason the world is now teetering on the edge of ecological and economic disaster.

PNO has come to be seen by people of reason as a local voice of reason. My hope is to expand that voice and, thus, to increase the level of hope for the future for all of us by expanding on these themes and providing clearly stated arguments for a change in our national approach to world-citizenship. We know that such change will not come from our “leaders”. It will have to come from the demands of the people for leadership that is far more sane than we have seen to date.


In the knowledge that my readers are people who do a lot of research and hard thinking, I am asking that you send any references you come across that might help in this effort to my attention at peacenetwork@ozarkpeace.net. I also ask that you consider joining PNO if you haven’t already done so. You can visit the PNO website at http://ozarkpeace.net or just send an email to Ron at peacenetwork@ozarkpeace.net and ask him about membership.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry


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

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle

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