Waging Peace
Why does it seem easier for Government to wage war than to wage peace? We have dropped more bombs in the name of peace than all the rest of the world combined. Each time the Government tells us that "this is the war to end all war". What bullshit. Our government is not interested in peace. Waging peace is work. It means finding the potential combatants, identifying their grievances, and reaching out to find solutions. It's not rocket science. It's the opposite of rocket science.
There are five billion people on the planet. Several million are starving. We stockpile food and pay farmers not to grow food. Food is our first tool for waging peace. Medicine is our second tool. We have to implement the mechanism to get the food and medicine to the starving and the dying. It is our moral imperative.
Why don't we recognize that abundance in the face of privation is the source of the greatest conflicts and that waging peace is less costly than waging war. We don't need a star wars defense system. We need a food and medicine defense system.
There is no peace complex. There is a military, industrial, and political complex. We wage war because there are people that profit by it. There is no money in peace. Peace is an expense. The underlying truth is that peace is cheaper than war. It is less expensive in human life and in real dollars than even a short war. The people that profit from war are the real enemy.
We need to move beyond capitalism. Capitalism doesn't wage peace. There is no bottom line to waging peace that you can take to investors. Investors, and that includes most of us in America, can make the difference. Forget politics, re-invest in socially conscious companies and de-invest in the war machine complex. Maybe then we can travel in the world without fear of stepping on our own land mines.
This is my ALIVE day. The day I survived the propaganda war and started waging peace. I don't need Government. They get in the way of peace.
Bob