Willie Nelson

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

We must remedy 3 stumbling blocks to achieve a lasting peace. First, we lack coordination among peace organizations and peace supportive human rights and justice organizations. But strong and rational voices express thoughtful concern over centralized leadership.

Concerns include loss of local effectiveness due to over centralization of leadership and a broad perception that the peace movement is predominantly male, white and middle class. These are both an organizational issue and a communication issue.

Both issues would benefit from pursuing peace peacefully.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), the largest peace lobby in the United States, does not help The Peace Alliance. The FCNL considers The Peace Alliance agenda a distraction to the FCNL methodical and pragmatic agendas. In other words, The Peace Alliance agenda is too radical for the FCNL.

The Peace Alliance, which is lobbying for the creation of a Department of Peace, does not support calls to end the Iraq conflict or impeach this administration on its website. This omission is glaring if you sample enough of various peace organizations online.

A28 wants MoveOn.org to poll all of its members on the impeachment issues. MoveOn.org is creative in coming up with reasons not to do this. Some believe direct action in the street is the only honest path with voting supporting a deeply flawed and corrupt system.

Self-righteous divisive opinion harms the peace movement.

Second, we permit corporate rights to trump human rights. Ever since corporations gained standing as privileged legal entities their rise to power is at the expense of the human condition. They have not always enjoyed this advantage. But since they do why not insist they are good citizens?

The conflict in Iraq is for the benefit of multinational oil cartels. Other corporations gain huge profits in the conflict as the United States increases its national debt. National corporate chains globally exploit the most vulnerable workers. Human beings in the United States must behave themselves or suffer the consequences of the law.

What are the consequences for misbehaving corporations?

In most cases they are levied a fine that pales relative to profit statements. And when occasionally corporate abuse is no longer bearable it takes an Act of Congress to end it. But the system that allowed it goes on. The United States has lost control over the corporations it has legally enabled.

And this loss of control over corporations occurs simultaneously with increased control over The People of the United States. Mandatory sentencing for ecoterrorism where no human being is hurt is draconian. Yet we witness accelerated corporate exploitation of natural resources and habitat with no regard for future generations.

Everywhere corporations benefit to the detriment of human beings.

Mainstream media, composed of corporations, mocks the Constitutional Freedom of Speech with heavily biased pro-corporate content. Proposed postal rate increases exempt the largest media corporations. Corporations enjoy tax advantages unavailable to individual people. The examples go on and on.

The immortality of corporations compounds this preferential treatment and these advantages. The law allows them to live forever. Generation after generation they grow stronger, influence ever more laws in their favor and increasingly enslave mortal humans.

Use the law to champion humanity over corporatism.

Third, damaging effects become damaging causes. A strong defense, an eye for an eye and preserving national honor ignore their effects upon child rearing practices. Violence begets violence. There is nothing in this that is difficult to understand.

The intersection of psychology and history provides evidence. The ambivalent mode of child rearing preceded the start of the Renaissance (mid 1300s) by only one or two generations. The Socializing mode of child rearing coincided with the Age of Enlightenment (late 1700s).

The abuse of children creates a violent society.

We now know how to raise children to be more empathic towards others. The helping mode of child rearing appeared in the mid-twentieth century. Some parents adopted the role of helping children reach their own goals in life. This has given us the most creative and socially beneficial people the world has ever seen.

This is how we create a world where everyone plays nice. And this issue revisits the first two stumbling blocks. So we find ourselves in a Catch 22. It has taken thousands of years to prepare for the progress made during the past hundreds of years. The human race may not have the time to let evolution take its course.

Accelerate the adoption of the helping child rearing mode.

Now we are ready for the 3 ingredients for a lasting peace.

1. Learn and practice Nonviolent Communication (NVC) as explained by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
2. Enact laws that mandate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
3. Implement the insights of Lloyd deMause, Alice Miller and others in their discipline.

The effects of the third will eventually obsolete the first two. But until that time we must police ourselves. We cannot afford to let more generations grow up dysfunctional and violent. Damaging the next generation through the actions of this generation must stop now. And if it stops now we also get to enjoy the benefits.

Be part of a truly diverse group of people representative of all The People of the United States prepared to engage leaders at all levels in diverse organizations to build a national consensus for lasting peace. This may include remaking the Democratic Party, aligning with an existing party such as the Greens or Libertarians or creating a new political party.

Humanity deserves this.

Help implement a peace platform at all levels of the political process. The perception that all political issues ultimately concern peace and justice is achievable and necessary. With a peace platform as a central issue, creating lasting peace becomes possible.

Share This

Tags: Appropriate Technology, Environment, Peace

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.