Global peace and safety

[Heart]

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Will this in any way contribute to global peace or safety?

What things would contribute to global peace and safety?

[Linus]

Will this in any way contribute to global peace or safety?

Nope. There will always be those that challenge others right to exist in the way that they do (whether they do so humanely or not)

What things would contribute to global peace and safety?

All humans stop living. Seriously. The human race and it's prejudices are what cause the majority of these problems. There are no quick fixes or simple solutions. As a Canadian, I'd say that the US needs to stop trying to tell others how to live. But that also applies to Canada. At the same time, economic pressures (a form of telling others how to live) are used to "discourage" human rights violations (and yet, the nation often applying it has done far more than it's fair share of violations against it's own native individuals).

I think the best that we can do, at times, is to do random acts of kindness locally as individuals on how we treat each other. It would less the global effect although it will not ever stop it.

[Words]

June beat me to it.

The fact that one of Qaddafi's sons and a couple - three? - of his grandchildren were murdered just a day or so probably doesn't help.

Honestly? I truly believe that the West in general, and the US in particular, is about to pay a very heavy price for its arrogance (not to mention the cold blooded murder of innocents).

Words

[Nat]

From japanese macaques to Romeo and Juliet to the crusades to the hatfields and mccoys, violence begets violence. I am not sure if peace begets peace or if nonviolence begets nonviolence, but the cycle of revenge seems to be a human (primate?) one. Perhaps it is the cost of having long memories.

I think the only way to make this world safer and more peaceful is to always push toward recognizing each other's humanity and dignity and to - as individuals as well as governments and cultures - to embrace justice over revenge and love over hate and over fear. Love, hate and fear are words thrown around so much that they have almost become meaningless. The examples who come most to my mind are the words and actions of MLK and Gandhi, as well as many of the words and actions attributed to Jesus and the Buddha. To seek both justice and understanding without giving into the human instinct(?) for revenge.


ruDxyOebIQM

[JustJo]

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Will this in any way contribute to global peace or safety?

What things would contribute to global peace and safety?

Will Bin Laden's death change anything? I don't think so.

What things would contribute to global peace and safety?

For an awfully long time, the US has been a bully out in the world. We tell others how to live, and impose sanctions if they don't adhere to our standards of what's right or wrong. We've invaded sovereign nations, because we decided we didn't like what they were doing. Well....lots of folks have issues with what we (the US) does....but how would we feel if they invaded us?

There are no easy answers, but I think a good start is to stop telling others how to live, what to think, and how to govern themselves. If we believe that there are human rights violations going on, then let's go in and make it super simple to immigrate to the US...and open the door for those who would like to get out.

Instead of being the bully with all the power and money....I think we'd be safer being a refuge for those who want it. And it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper than what we're spending on war.

I know it's not that simple...but it'd be a place to start.

[weatherboi]

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Will this in any way contribute to global peace or safety?

Absolutely not.

What things would contribute to global peace and safety?

A critical mass of humans would need to want world peace and safety in order to sustain it....genuinely. My view from the sidelines watching the news it doesn't look like the right amount of people are ready for that to happen. When the right amount of people in the world finally decide to come together under the same umbrella to offer peace and love then the scale will tip and a chain reaction will take place. When governments stop putting profit before their people. When leaders believe the welfare of others as important as their own self preservation. When big corporations no longer are considered entities and have no power over the people. When skin color and gender no longer matter.

Pakistan didn't give up their airspace and allow us to go in there and get this guy without giving them something. I am wondering what it is we had to bargain with in order to make this happen. Understanding that...bad intentions create bad intentions which keeps the critical mass scale tipping towards evil. No peace will be had from the events that have taken place over the past few days.

Now I am off to chase the money trail and find out what we had to give up to get this guy!!!

Great thread Heart.

[Heart]

Hmmmm... nothing is "off topic," but there are other threads about bin laden's death, u.s. policy etc. I guess what I personally wanted was to read people's thoughts about ways to consider and promote global peace and safety. Maybe it's an odd moment to consider this....

I agree that it needs to start within one's own heart, family, community. Globally we consist of so many different cultures, faiths, tribes, governments, and histories -- fraught with violence, power struggles, poverty, and the subjugation of groups of people...

What is something, one thing, which you see now as contributing to global peace and safety? Either something you imagine, a change, direction you think is important, or something you can link to...?

Here's the one that first popped into my head: http://www.batshalom.org/about.php

Heart

[Martina]

Supposedly the death of Bin Laden will help us in our negotiations with the Taliban. i am not sure i understand why. i gather that the fewer foreigners influencing the Taliban, the better. Apparently the foreigners tend to be more radical than even the Taliban. We are negotiating with the Taliban in preparation for leaving Afghanistan. We need to be very effective and guarantee freedom and opportunity for women. We must negotiate with them, but we can't give away too much.

We can help Egypt make sure that their young people have a hope of employment if we don't want fundamentalism to gain ground there. Egypt is more important than Libya ever will be. We need to pay attention to it. We can start by forgiving their debt to us. Millions of new jobs need to be created there if there is a hope for a democratic future. If the efforts to create a democracy in Egypt fail, then it makes the efforts of all the other nations much less likely to succeed.

We need to get out of Iraq. Withdraw.

At home, we can punish the corporations and entities that cause serious economic and environmental damage, like BP and the financial executives that knowingly perpetuated schemes dangerous to the economy and to individual homeowners and investors.

We can tax corporations like GE. Good people need to have a sense that there is justice before they can invest in public life and work to make changes.

[Nat]

http://www.soros.org/ (open society foundations)

http://blogs.ushmm.org/COC2 (voices for genocide prevention)

http://www.amnesty.org/

[AtLast]

June beat me to it.

The fact that one of Qaddafi's sons and a couple - three? - of his grandchildren were murdered just a day or so probably doesn't help.

Honestly? I truly believe that the West in general, and the US in particular, is about to pay a very heavy price for its arrogance (not to mention the cold blooded murder of innocents).

Words


Putting this into the context of having your own kids or grand kids killed because someone hates you brings it home. I remember when one of Qaddafi's daughters was killed a few years ago and thinking about this. When Saddam's sons were killed, I know that due to their adult history with violence against women was on my mind- but so was "they were someone's child." What did their mother feel?

My emotions are spinning over this today- but maybe later I can get it together to respond to Heart's questions. A discussion from these perspectives is really important. How many more generations will be hurt by terrorism and what gives it life? Then we can consider all those killed by Tim Mc Vey's (our home grown terrorist that took out a day care center along with his intended target) twisted mind and imbalance- which I really think is at the bottom of so much of these things. Might not have one thing to do with any of the political and economic variables we so often project causation upon.

It is difficult for me due to having a family and friends link to the Towers on 9/11. Yet, on the other side- I always feel just plain sadness with all that has happened both before and after 9/11 (speaking as a US American).

I imagine that in the UK, there are many that feel about the same way about Tony Blair as we do about George W. Bush. And your country has also been through these kinds of attacks and continued threat.

Something that has always bothered me is our (US) arrogance in thinking that we are any different than so many countries and peoples that have lived with this kind of violence almost every day for many, many years- just a way of life to wonder if your kid will come back from going and having a soda with friends. I don’t think I can even begin to understand this on the level other people do in the world.

[Jess]

Heart -- I think most of the time, I feel like nothing I personally do can make a difference in promoting peace. I vote, I speak out, but I am either preaching to the choir or knocking my head against a wall because the people that do the "othering" to justify wars are so entrenched in their ideology, either because of how they were raised, or they are only interested i being spoon fed by Fox news and the right wing "Entertainers" (Rush, Glenn, etc.) because it supports their already racist, narrow minded attitudes.

I feel out of control of our collective destiny. I believe that the world is going to fall apart badly as the need for oil increases. I am afraid that we will be at war with China within ten years over Oil. And that's not a war we can win based on sheer numbers. We are hurtling over the top of peak oil right now and I think we are mostly screwed.

I very much agree with this. Interesting comments from an article regarding Exxon's first quarter profits ...

'In China, the world’s second-largest consumer of oil and gas after the U.S., demand for oil-based fuels such as diesel rose 11 percent during the first three months of this year, almost seven times the U.S.’s 1.6 percent growth rate, according to the International Energy Agency. '
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-28/exxon-mobil-s-first-quarter-profit-rises-amid-oil-price-surge.html

I don't know how to promote global peace through words. Words fail us at our best attempts too often when communicating with someone of a different culture or upbringing. I find visual communication a better tool for reaching understanding.

Sites like http://www.faces-foundation.org/projects/89-educationcat/160-our-projects are helpful to me when trying to educate myself about other cultures.

Good topic to ponder. Thanks.

[Martina]

i tell you what i think is encouraging. The recession turned a lot of people on to frugal living. Perhaps not initially by choice, but now a lot of folks would not go back even if their income reached former levels.

A lof of people have found that not being driven by consumerist desires makes them happier and improves their relationships. i think that's actually a very big deal.

The less we are driven by the desire to work and spend, spend and work, the more likely we are to look around at what we do want, things that are less or perhaps not at all mediated by the market.

We may enjoy the outdoors and notice that some place we love is in danger. We may then spend some of our extra time and energy working to keep it safe.

Urban gardening, which is increasing like crazy and is no longer just a hobby of the well-to-do, is changing lives. People are much more aware of where food comes from and how it affects them. They are more in control of their lives as a result of something as simple as growing some of their own food. They work in groups, they meet neighbors, they reclaim neglected dangerous areas, and so on. Related -- i think the fact that Michael Pollen's books have been popular beyond the NPR crowd is meaningful.

The revolutions in the Middle East are amazing and encouraging in so many ways. i know Arabs who swore this would never happen, that Arabs don't form alliances, that they were never going to stand up to Daddy. Well they have and they did.

i think the fact that people can SEE how government failed to protect us from the predatory practices of the financial sector has also made people a question the benevolence of capitalism in ways we haven't seen since before Reagan. i wish there were more righteous anger about the causes of the economic crisis. But i believe that people are changed as a result of seeing the economic breakdown as not some mysterious correction in the system, but a result of unfettered greed on the part of previously trusted institutions. i think long term that people will question more and take less on faith. They will ask more of government, i hope.

There are many more people interested in the environment and in alternatives to oil. Government, regulated industries, and the auto industry have done everything they could for thirty years to keep us unaware of the real potential of alternatives, but they are beginning to be developed finally. Things like the small cheap solar panels that charge batteries in remote villages in Africa make such a difference. People save to buy them, and then make a little money from neighbors who charge their cell phones, etc. AND, this is huge -- school children are now able to study after dark because of this. More educated poor people -- that is a potentially powerful force for change.

As much as social media may isolate individuals and mediate what were once more intimate connections, it has also helped people communicate when they were in danger or when governments wanted them silenced. Again their role in the uprisings in the Middle East was important.

There are many encouraging signs. Ang San Suu Kyi was released. i mean Myanmar finally bowed to pressure.

i don't know. i see signs of awakening. i am hopeful. i am on the left, and there is a resurgence of activity there. For so long we were completely demoralized. But i think that there is a bit of a shift. People are willing to hear from us again.

[Heart]

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." ~Martin Luther King, Jr

[julieisafemme]

Heart -- I think most of the time, I feel like nothing I personally do can make a difference in promoting peace. I vote, I speak out, but I am either preaching to the choir or knocking my head against a wall because the people that do the "othering" to justify wars are so entrenched in their ideology, either because of how they were raised, or they are only interested i being spoon fed by Fox news and the right wing "Entertainers" (Rush, Glenn, etc.) because it supports their already racist, narrow minded attitudes.

I feel out of control of our collective destiny. I believe that the world is going to fall apart badly as the need for oil increases. I am afraid that we will be at war with China within ten years over Oil. And that's not a war we can win based on sheer numbers. We are hurtling over the top of peak oil right now and I think we are mostly screwed.

Ohh this makes my heart hurt! June you and all of us can promote peace everyday. I don't think the goal is to control the collective destiny but to work with it and control our own individual destiny. I am a religious, PollyAnna kind of person about this I know. When I reach out and help someone who needs it that promotes peace. When I talk to my child about injustice and prejudice in the world, teach her how to identify it and how to fight it when it is right in front of her that promotes peace.

I really agree with and appreciate what Weatherboi said. It is a balance that is at a tipping point and when the balance of people in the world can agree on the common goal of peace it will tip that way. I believe that can and will happen and I believe that how I live my life, raise my child and behave in the communties I am a part of will help tip that balance. I also agree with and appreciate what Martina said about the changes in our country since the recession.

Sorry if this is too silly or facile. I feel this in my body as a tangible force.

[violaine]

[QUOTE=JustJo;331753]
There are no easy answers, but I think a good start is to stop telling others how to live, what to think, and how to govern themselves. If we believe that there are human rights violations going on, then let's go in and make it super simple to immigrate to the US...and open the door for those who would like to get out.

Instead of being the bully with all the power and money....I think we'd be safer being a refuge for those who want it. And it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper than what we're spending on war.

I know it's not that simple...but it'd be a place to start.

indubitably! i do not see how forcing beliefs/culture from this country can foster healthy relations there [insert country/culture].

[Martina]

If we consume local products, if we consume fewer products and foods that have been produced cheaply resulting in the exploitation of workers and damage to the environment, then we are at least not contributing to violence.

We do not want to be living on the exploitation of others' labor. That creates a class whose interests oppose ours. When our standard of living depends on cheap food and other items produced overseas, we are aligning ourselves with the powers exploiting others -- corporations and governments who do little to protect their workers (like China). We are not only complicit with the exploitation of the workers, we perpetuate a class system -- i can only live well if i exploit a bunch of you -- that inevitably leads to violence.

It's really hard when you're poor too, which is why the urban farms in places like Detroit really have amazing potential to create change.

[Words]

Here's the one that first popped into my head: http://www.batshalom.org/about.php

Heart

You know Heart, I was loathe to mention anything about the Palestinian/Israei conflict because I know a little about your history whilst you know a fair bit about mine and I didn't want to come across as being provocative/inconsiderate/whatever. That, it appears, was very stupid of me and I apologize for not giving you more credit.

I am so glad that YOU mentioned Batshalom. Thank you.

Words

[weatherboi]

www.susanpiver.com

Osama bin Laden is dead. One Buddhist’s response.



“In the Shambhala warrior tradition, we say you should only have to kill an enemy once every thousand years.” –Chogyam Trungpa

So, Osama bin Laden is dead. We killed him. There really was no choice. We were clearly in an “us or them” situation and if we didn’t kill him, he was going to continue to do everything in his power to kill us.

As Buddhists, we are supposed to abhor all killing, but what do you do when someone is trying to kill you? Obviously great theologians have pondered this question for millennia and I’m not going to try to pile on with my point of view, which would be totally useless.

Instead, I’ll pose this question: How do you kill your enemy in a way that puts a stop to violence rather than escalates it?

Strangely, I keep coming back to the same rather ordinary conclusion: the answer is in our ability to face our emotions. When we know how to relate to our anger, hatred, despair, and frustration fully and properly, they self-liberate. When we don’t, when we can’t tolerate them and therefore act them out, we create enormous sorrow and confusion.

Look at your own reaction this morning.

Was there even a hint of vengefulness or gladness at Osama bin Laden’s death? If so, that is a real problem. Whatever suffering he may have experienced cannot reverse even one moment of the suffering he caused. If you believe his death is a form of compensation, you are deluded.

There has been an outpouring of misdirected jubilation, as if a contest had been won. Nothing has been won. Unlike winning a sporting event, this doesn’t mean that our team has triumphed. Far from it. There is only one team and it is us.

One of us is gone, one apparently horrific, terrible, vicious one of us…is gone. I don’t feel regret for him or about this. I’m regretful for the rest of us who are now left thinking that this is a cause for*celebration. It is not. *It is a cause for sorrow at our continued inability to realize that there is no such thing as us and them; that whatever we do to cause harm to one will harm us all.

When we hate, we cause hate. When we think we have won by vanquishing our enemy, we have lost. In killing Osama bin Laden, “they” lose because one of their leaders is gone. But we lose too, because we have deepened the causes and conditions that lead to more hatred and its consequences. This is not over.

Then, what to do? I don’t really know, but for me, rather than cheering on this day, I’m going to rededicate myself to the idea of brotherhood towards all, even those that want me dead—and not because I’m some kind of really good person. I’m not. Because I know it’s the only way to stay alive—in the only kind of world I want to inhabit.

Perhaps the way to kill your enemy as a way of putting a stop to violence rather than escalating is to shift our view of “enemy” altogether. Our enemy is not one person or country or belief system. It is our unwillingness to feel the sorrow of others—who are none other than us.

So take aim at this enemy completely and precisely. Feel your sadness for us and them so fully and completely that all boundaries are dissolved and we are left standing face to face, human to human, each feeling the other’s rage and despair as our own, one world to care for.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Killing One Monster, Unleashing Another: Reflections on Revenge and Revelry


Tim Wise

May 2, 2011, 8:15 pm

There is a particularly trenchant scene in the documentary film, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead, in which Blecker - who teaches at New York University School of Law and is the nation's most prominent pro-death penalty scholar - travels to Tennessee's Riverbend Prison for the execution of convicted murderer, Daryl Holton. Blecker is adamant that Holton, who murdered his own children, deserves to die for his crime. Yet, when he gets to the prison on the evening of Holton's electrocution, Blecker is disturbed not only by the anti-death penalty forces whom he views as dangerously naive, but also by those who have come to literally cheer the state-sponsored killing. He agrees with their ultimate position, but can't understand why they feel the need to celebrate death, to party as a life is taken. The event is somber, he tries to tell them. Human life is precious, he insists; so precious, in Blecker's mind, that occasionally we must take the lives of killers so as to reinforce that respect for human life. But there is no reason to revel in the death of another, he tries to explain. While I disagree with Blecker on the matter of the death penalty, I felt sympathy for him in that moment, trying to thread the needle between advocacy of killing - any killing - and the retention of the nuance that allows the supporter of such a thing to still preach about the sanctity of life. It was a nice attempt, and heartfelt.
Of course, his pleas for solemnity fall on deaf ears. His ideological compatriots cannot comprehend him. They even misunderstand his position on the ultimate issue, presuming at first that his unwillingness to cheer the death of one as evil as Holton means he must oppose the death penalty, and that he doesn't care about the children Holton killed. Ultimately, Blecker walks away, clearly shaken, not in his support for capital punishment, but by the way in which others on his own side seem to literally glorify death, even need it.
I was reminded of this scene today, while watching coverage of the celebrations around the country (but especially in Washington D.C. and Manhattan), which began last night when it was announced that Osama bin Laden was dead. In front of the White House were thousands of affluent and overprivileged (and mostly white) college students from George Washington University (among the nation's most expensive schools), partying like it was spring break. Never needing an excuse to binge drink, the GW and Georgetown co-eds responded to the news of bin Laden's death as though their team had just won the Final Four. That none of them would have had the guts to actually go and fight the war that they seem to support so vociferously - after all, a stint in the military might disrupt their plans to work on Wall Street, or to become high-powered lawyers, or just get in the way of their spring formal - matters not, one supposes. They have other people to do the hard work for them. They always have.
In New York, the throngs assembled may have been more economically diverse, but the revelry was similar. Lots of flags, chants of "U.S.A., U.S.A.," and an overall "rah-rah" attitude akin to that which one might experience at a BCS Bowl game, and once again, mostly led by guys who would never, themselves, have gone to war, to get bin Laden or anyone else.
You have to wonder - or actually, you don't because the answer is so distressingly obvious - would these throngs pour into the streets to celebrate in this fashion if it were announced that a cure for cancer had been discovered, or for AIDS? Would thousands of people be jumping up and down belting out patriotic chants if the president were to announce that our country's scientists had found a new, affordable method for wiping out all childhood disease, malnutrition or malaria in poor countries around the world? Though these maladies kill far more than Osama bin Laden ever dreamt of slaughtering, and although any of these developments would be a source of intense pride for millions, there is almost no chance that they would be met with drunken revelry. Partying is what we do when we kill people, when we beat someone, when we grind them to dust. It is not what we do when we save lives or end suffering. Saving lives or doing humanitarianism is like making love, while killing people is tantamount to a good, hard, and largely one-sided fuck; and unfortunately we know which of these two things men, in particular, are more apt to prefer.
Don't get me wrong: I am not a pacifist. I know there are times when violence may be necessary, either in self-defense, vicarious defense of others, or to prevent greater violence. If you were to break into my house and attempt to harm my family, let there be no misunderstanding: you would die, and I would kill you, without so much as a moment's hesitation. But I would not, upon having taken your life (however justified), proceed to pop a cold one, invite friends over and dance around your bloody body. I would not be happy about what I had done. Taking a life, even when you have no choice, is no cause for joy. It is a grave and serious event; and it is utterly unnatural, such that militaries the world over have to dehumanize their enemies and work furiously to break down their soldiers' natural human tendencies to not kill. The fact that violence may be necessary in certain cases, and even in the case of stopping bin Laden, cannot, in and of itself justify raucous celebrations of his death at the hands of the United States.
So yes, we can argue that bin Laden deserved to die. But that's the easy part. Beyond what one deserves, whether they be terrorists or just street criminals, there is the matter of what society needs. And it may be that what a healthy society needs is less bombastic rhetoric, less celebratory embrace of violence, and less jingoistic nationalism, even if that means that we have to respond to the news of bin Laden's death with a more muted tone, perhaps being thankful in private, or even drinking a toast with friends in our own homes, but not turning the matter into public spectacle, the likes of which cheapens matters of life and death to little more than a contest whose results can be tallied on a scoreboard.
It may prove cathartic that one the likes of bin Laden is dead. His death may provide an opportunity for a much-needed exhaling; but that doesn't render it the proper subject of a pep rally. And given the larger need to challenge the mentality of disposability that is at the root of all murderous violence, it may be that in such moments we would be far better off to solemnly commemorate the death of the monster than to cheer it openly, when the latter is so likely to inflame passions on the part of those whose allegiance to the monster remained unsullied right to the end.
Ultimately, the mentality of human disposability that animates war, terrorism, gang violence and all forms of homicidal street crime, is a dangerous one to indulge, and certainly to indulge giddily. Such a mindset feeds upon itself, perpetuates itself without end, and serves to ratify the same in others. Surely we should strive to do better, even when, for various reasons, we can't manage it, and are required to take life for one reason or another. Most soldiers, after all, are not happy or self-satisfied about the things they've done in war. For many, if not most, killing even when you have no choice, is life-changing. It scars. It comes back in the middle of the night, haunting the soldier's dreams for years, and sometimes forever. We do not honor them or their sacrifices by treating the mortal decisions they so often have to make as if they were no more gut-wrenching than those made during the playing of a video game.
Perhaps the only thing more disturbing than the celebrations unleashed in the wake of bin Laden's demise was the cynical way in which the president suggested that his killing proved "America can do whatever we set our mind to." If this is, indeed, the lesson of bin Laden's death, then this only suggests we clearly don't want to diminish, let alone end, child poverty, excess mortality rates in communities of color, rape and sexual assault of women (including the many thousands who have been victimized in the U.S. military), or food insecurity for millions of families; because we aren't addressing any of those things with nearly the aplomb as that put to warfare and the killing of our adversaries.
We are, if the president is serious here, a nation that has narrowly constricted its marketable talents to the deployment of violence. We can't manufacture much of anything, but we can kill you. We can't fix our schools, or build adequate levees to protect a city like New Orleans from floodwaters. But we can kill you. We can't reduce infant mortality to anywhere near the level of other industrialized nations with which we like to compare ourselves. But we can kill you. We can't break the power of Wall Street bankers, or jail any of those bankers and money managers who helped orchestrate the global financial collapse. But we can kill you. We can't protect LGBT youth from bullying in schools, or ensure equal opportunity for all in the labor market, regardless of race, gender, sexuality or any other factor. But we can kill you. Booyah, bitches.
But somewhere, I suspect, there is a young child - maybe the age of one of my own - who is sitting in front of a television tonight in Karachi, or Riyadh. And he's watching footage of some fraternity boy, American flag wrapped around his back, cheering the death of one who this child believes, for whatever fucked up reason, is a hero, and now, a martyr.
And I know that this child will likely do what all such children do; namely, forget almost nothing, remember almost everything, and plan for the day when he will make you remember it too, and when you will know his name. And if (or when) that day comes, the question will be, was your party worth it?

[Heart]

Thank you so much everyone for the thoughtful intriguing responses!

Words -- I think you and I just created a tiny little shining sliver of peace.

Heart

[Greyson]

What is something, one thing, which you see now as contributing to global peace and safety? Either something you imagine, a change, direction you think is important, or something you can link to...?

Here's the one that first popped into my head: http://www.batshalom.org/about.php

Heart



Sharing the resources I have control over with others. Keeping my thoughts and opinions to myself at times. Listening with open ears and heart.

[Heart]

As anyone with access to social media knows by now the quote I posted above was mis-attributed to MLK. My apologies for continuing the mis-attribution here.

Heart

[Apocalipstic]

I must admit to being glad I am not traveling internationally this week.

What can we do? Try to understand and love each other a little more each day. Peace starts at home.

[AtLast]

Global peace- global being operative to me. How can I recognize any kind of peace is not felt by the world? And to me, that is at the root of why we just don’t seem to get there.

Parenting to me is such a vital part of building global peace and safety. Modeling peaceful and respectful human interaction is critical. Just feels like this is one of the most important pieces of how we as individuals can have some influence over how the world fares with finding peace for all people.

I think that ridding ourselves of ideas such as “just peace” is a good idea. There is no way that one person or culture of people has the corner on defining justice in any form for world peace. And attempting to do so only leads to more conflict.

I do not feel the world is a very safe place- no matter the geography. I am one that does think about how very vulnerable we can be when participating in public gatherings. As Pride events draw near, I realize that every year since attending the first over 30 years ago in SF, I have always glanced to roof tops and wondered about bullets flying. I might feel this more this year. I think about this when I visit places that could be symbolic targets for terrorist activity (worldwide). It has become a part of my life. There are many more people in the world that have grown up with this reality in the world than me. Have had first hand experience with this horror.

Sometimes, I just think that if we could simply unravel our divisions and honestly compromise, we would get somewhere with building a peaceful nation and world. Hell, this would be helpful within our own queer community!

Hearing what many of you are offering is helping me build think about my own actions and contributions. I also know that as a retired person, I have more time for involvement in peace organizations that might make a difference. This really is a “perk” in retirement. It is especially helpful during elections- grass roots organizing does make a difference, but having the time to devote to this is needed. I see so many struggling in the world recession really. So, my personal means to contribute to the variable that could influence peace is related to one of life’s “passages.”

[Martina]

i saw this lovely movie on Netflix streaming. It's called The Way We Get By, and it's about some older people who greet troops returning from overseas. They greet them at the Bangor, Maine Airport and thank them for their service. They provide handshacks, hugs, cookies, and cellphones for them to call home. i think i also saw some jackets that i think they lent to soldiers who wanted to go outside in cold weather. It was more about the three greeters than the troops. ANd it is kind of scary about old age. But it was lovely. i think they have greeted over a million troops. i can't believe we have so many coming and going.

i also just saw a film about some women who started a beauty school in Kabul. It was kind of sweet. i read though that the school was taken over by one of the American teachers who married a local. Anyway, they ran it into the ground. But it was a lovely idea. Some of it made me cringe -- a little ugly or stupid American stuff. An Afghani woman complains about her aggressive husband, being overworked at home, etc. -- fairly dire conditions. And the woo woo instructor from America suggests she meditate before she enters the house. i am a Buddhist, but .. . .

Anyway. i thought of this thread because these were both efforts that fairly ordinary people have made to make a difference -- related to this conflict.

[Apocalipstic]

I do have to say that I don't really find things any more scary than I did in the 70's.

More scary actually.

But I get more brave as I age.

[AtLast]

Been thinking a lot about the role social networking via the internet can have a role in the possibility of global peace. So often, the real feelings of "just people" are hidden behind media, especially during elections! Tyhere have been more than a few times that I have been stunned at what is attributed to me as an individual in the US!