Ending Violence As The Means To Solving Conflicts;
Of course the use of violence to solve conflicts can never be totally eliminated. But the use of violence, both domestically, and globally, is spinning way out of control. It seems currently these killing fields are the only method of population control in vogue. And yet these killing fields are a failure even at that, but not for lack of trying. Even more amazing, those who are most active in organized religions, with the exception of Buddhists and Quakers, are the biggest and most steadfast supporters of military engagements across the world. Something is dangerously wrong here, even ludicrous except for the massive death totals being rung up by these enthusiasts of violence. Of course each side knows in their heart their cause is absolutely right and that God is on their side. There are never any shortage of clergy of some sort to bless all these warriors of human, environmental, and material destruction. When I see these flag waving mobs flailing religious bibles of some sort in the air and screaming hate filled bile at their enemies, it seems like our world has become some sort of obscene insane asylum.
But really, how the hell can one stop all the violence which has permeated all levels of society in an ever increasing number of nations across the globe? We no longer have drafted armies out to save their nation from external attacks, but volunteer national or factional professional soldiers whose careers now are based on using military force to solve all problems that arise, domestically or globally. If there is any lull in the wars these professional soldiers will find one to wage. Each side in these conflicts sees all their efforts as some sort of military victory and nothing short of that. Even when every reason for starting the conflict is gone or never existed, winning remains the goal. Each side is willing to use whatever it takes to win, as winning becomes a goal and activity in and of itself. Nothing about the violence so prevalent across the globe is about peace or fairness or tolerance or reason--- and the only peace possible with this kind of mentality is the peace of total desolation, a sort of stone age grave yard like tranquility.
To me the beginning of the end of this mentality of employing violence to solve conflict has to start at the top, with world leaders, especially those in the United States---leaders who are willing to change the mindset of this crazy violence driven mania. It starts with the Lincolnian understanding that ALL ANYONE CAN KNOW OR EXPRESS BEARS THE STAMP OF THE CULTURE, CONTEXT, AND SHARED WAY OF LIFE OF THEIR OWN PECULIAR ENVIRONMENT. Much of what drives our own lives is not fact, but learned perceptions based on individualized experiences. What IS constant across cultures are basic moral precepts of right and wrong. I can't think of any human culture anywhere, past or present, which did not understand the basic Golden rule. Everyone, with the exception of psychopaths, knows it is wrong to kill, to steal, to cheat, etc. Unfortunately there are other, more selfish drives, which enable people to virtually ignore these inconvenient moral truths, truths which everyone logically understands.
Desperate people who strap homemade bombs to their backs and blow up their enemies and buildings and themselves are considered outrageous terrorists. Those who use sophisticated missiles to do the same thing without personal harm to themselves are freedom fighters. That's the wonder of language. I suppose, if you gave these suicide bombers the choice of using a sophisticated missile to blow up some people and buildings of their 'enemies' they would be glad to switch and do so. Would that then make them by definition a freedom fighter?
We need to go back to the basic principles upon which this country was founded and extend these principles to others. These principles have nothing to do with one religion or another. but freedom of religion. These principles have nothing to do with controlling what kind of government other sovereign nations adopt, but with freedom for others to adopt their own form of government. These principles have nothing to do with interfering with the internal policies and priority of other sovereign nations, but staying out of other nations internal affairs. These principles certainly have nothing to do with establishing foreign military bases in foreign countries to prop up governments so their own population can't overthrow them. Whether Saudi Arabia continues to be run by a Royal Family is the business of Saudi Citizens not the business of the U.S. The reality is that if we had not put military bases in Arabia during the first Iraq War, Al Queda (sp) would not even exist.
There is never anything wrong meeting with, and talking to, others about solving conflicts peaceably. There is nothing wrong with giving others the freedom to run their own lives, their own religions, and their own politics as they themselves determine.
There is never anything wrong with protecting your own security or demanding economic fairness. There is no country in the world with the slightest ability or intention to capture or invade the United States. In such a sense no nation has the security from attack that we do. All the terrorist groups surfacing across the globe seem to have one thing in common: they want United States military bases and personnel out of their country. For now the battles are far away. But the very nature of terrorism coupled with the wonders of the internet portend it will not stay so distant for long.
The most creative thing American politicians of late do is to generate endless reasons why we must remain in other countries with a vast military presence. In the Middle East it is oil. Fair enough, we stupidly continue to depend on mideast oil, one of our most senseless short term priorities. We continue to do almost nothing to reduce our dependency on oil as our source of energy. Our resources these days are all spent on military ventures. To hell with anything else. And even here, with this oil dependency, there is no reason to occupy middle east countries. A simple emphatic statement that they can run their own country as long as they supply us oil at world market prices will suffice to keep us from attacking them. I guess this is too easy and fails to meet our penchant for running other countries.
"Well", some would say, "we have to control these countries or they might attack Israel". Fair enough. The solution here is simple too. A firm statement that anyone who bombs Israel will be bombed by us should do the trick. Is there any country over there which doesn't know what the result will be if we were to bomb them? And it really wouldn't take years and years as we did in Vietnam or Iraq. There would be no need to toy with them. We don't need military bases right next door to do that either. We can bomb from ships, we can refuel in the air, we can always find allies willing to let us land at their own airports to refuel.
"But" some would insist, "What about suicide bombers and border raids by neighboring countries on Israel? How will these be ended?" These will be ended when Israel and the rest of the world--- which decided, in a moment of irrationality---after the holocaust---that the Jewish people needed their own state; the attacks end when Israel decides to compensate the displaced Arabs with a thriving economy. If one tenth of the money Israel spends on military matters had been spent on helping the Palestinians acquire a strong economy, then the Palestinians would have something to protect and stop their aggression. People with nothing to lose fight and will fight forever. It already seems like forever. The Arabs have always had a real point. It was not the Arabs who carried out any holocaust against the Jews---the holocaust happened in Europe, so why, if the Jews needed a separate state, was this state carved out from Arab lands? Why did the UN decide that a certain religious group had to have it's own state? Where is the logic there? Like where do the Baptists report to for their own state? Or the American Indians?
Global efforts should always be focused on finding ways for differing groups to co-exist. And this always arises from talking and meeting and negotiating, and compromising, and tolerating, and developing concern for all citizens of every ethnicity and religious affiliation. This obsessive use of violence to solve conflict is like a virus which spreads to all levels of society until even young people accept violence to solve disputes, disrespected incidents, religious differences, etc. No national leaders can preach one thing and do another without real costs to their society.
One sure cause of violence is extreme disparity between the wealth of a privileged or favored rich class and the poor. This massive accumulation of wealth in our own country in the hands of a wealthy few is going to invite disaster at some point. When 1% of the population owns 90% of the wealth in a country, as it now does in this country, that country is on the brink of economic chaos followed by widespread violence. This increased wealth in the hands of the top 1% has made the discrepancy between the rich and the poor greater now in our own country than any other industrialized country in the world. When the Have Nots finally explode with violence against the Haves, the Have Nots in history have always won in the long run. Always. There has never been an advanced civilization yet which was able to restrict the greed of the wealthy. The chickens always come home to roost, and those with such unnecessary wealth can never protect that wealth when the chaos comes.
Everyone seems to agree that nuclear war is unthinkable. We are the only country who has ever used it. Whether it was right or wrong it sure dwarfs the Twin Towers in terms of killing innocent civilians. I know, it also saved a lot of lives by ending the war. No matter the correct answer here nuclear weapons are a threat wherever they exist. It makes no sense to ok some countries to have nuclear weapons and others not to have them. No one should be permitted to have them. There is no logical or fair method for deciding who can have nuclear weapons. As the crazy world stands now the only way any country can be assured the US will not invade their country at some point in time is for them to possess nuclear weapons. Right now, logic is irrelevant in much of what happens. Iran is criticized for arming certain factions in Iraq. And just what the hell are we doing? Imagine if certain countries were arming certain factions in Canada or Mexico, our neighbors. We would raise hell about it. We desperately need a leader who can get others across the globe to step back, reject violence, commit to fairness, and work out differences peaceably. People need to put down their flags, their religious bibles of varied sorts, their ethnicity, and focus on the problems that threaten quality of human life across our common globe. The money alone which is used to perpetuate all this violence, whether it be foreign wars or our War against Drugs, can be put to far more useful purposes including health care, global minimum wages, environmental matters, and education.
Of course there are those who say essentially that nothing can be done about all this violence, that it is part of life, and besides, it is always the other side who is responsible for it. Well, nothing is ever gained by not trying. At this point to accept this way of life, this mentality of using violence to solve conflicts---to accept this---is to accept that all hope is lost. And if all hope is lost one may as well put a gun to their own head and let it be over right now. Others disagree with everything I have said above and see the proper solution as wearing a flag pin, clutching a bible of some sort in their hand, and gleefully cheer all those amongst them who volunteer to go forth and do all this killing on the varied killing fields across the globe. My country, right or wrong, has never had so much irrational support across the globe. Increasingly it adds religion to the mix and the level of violence soars even higher. What a revolting development all this has become.
Finally, the cost of using violence to solve conflict has become astronomical. No where has the priority for violence as a means to some sort of end become so well funded as in the U.S. We spend more on military matters than all the rest of the countries in the world put together. We put more people in jail per one thousand people than any other country in the world. We are the only country with vast numbers of military bases in so many other countries, we are the only country in the world where it's citizens kill each other in such numbers absent a civil war or genocide, we are the only country in the world where the production of weapons is the largest industry in the country. We spend billions every month to support wars and even more to build weaponry. The cost is so high now that we respond by not even paying for our current wars, but borrowing money from other countries to pay for these wars. Considering the mind set of the founding fathers of this country, it all seems surreal. The cost is so great to support violence as the means of solving conflict, that millions of our citizens have no health care, there is little money for educating kids in poverty areas, there is little money to solve environmental problems, and the list goes on.
The most depressing aspect of all of this is the indifference we have come to have toward all of this. We have pretty much accepted violence as our way of life. Any one who suggests pulling the plug on all of this is labeled unpatriotic, out of touch with reality, gutless pansies and subjected to derogatory labels. The real kicker is that those most supportive of all this state supported violence are often the loudest proclaimers of being good devout Christians. Ah, the wonders of language. They all read their bibles, they have heard or read the words of Jesus, and yet they really think God is with us in all these ventures of violence. It was recently predicted by a United Nations study that in the near future 100 million people in the world are going to die of starvation from lack of food, in some cases because there is not enough food, and in other cases because they can't afford to buy the food. 100 million people are shortly to die of starvation! 100 million! The indifference to all this by our own country makes one wonder whether the Reverend Wrights of this world might not be the true Christians, the true patriots. Still, when we know we are right---I mean for sure right---- how upsetting to have some one scream in our face that we are not right, that we are not blameless. If that son of a bitch doesn't like it here, the way we do things, let him get the hell out of this country. Tis a shame he and his ilk don't live banded together in some far away land, we would then be free to take them out with a few smart bombs.
I recently watched a multipart documentary entitled: Vietnam: A Television History. It was a most depressing experience to watch the actual videos of the actions and words of those American leaders involved. There is absolutely no way America can come across as the good guy. These strange little Asian runts hung tough against all odds and and endless holocausts for hundreds and hundreds of years. Huge major powers subjected them to outside rule and slaughter for hundreds and hundreds of years. First the Chinese, then the French, then the Japanese, then the French again, and finally the Americans arrived to teach them the ultimate lesson. We dropped more bomb tonnage on Vietnam than the tonnage dropped in World War I and II. The lies and cruelness of American leaders of both parties, obsessed with winning for the sake of pride and mindless patriotism is unnerving to the core. The video shots of what we did to whole villages, to captured suspects, to women and children, and the carnage to our own young soldiers is mind boggling. It makes you want to hate everyone who supported that war. But wait---I supported that war enthusiastically until the very end---everything I hated about what I heard or saw our leaders say and do I adamantly supported at the time. Back then George Bush and I were companion ass holes. He hid in the National Guard and I hid behind a student deferment, and no one was a more forceful cheerleader for the war at that time than I. When I stood at the Vietnam War memorial in Washington some years ago, it was more than sadness for me, it was unrelenting personal shame. The Vietnamese fight for independence and self rule makes our own war for independence pale in comparison. They never had any advantage except perseverance. I am extremely glad they won. I am extremely embarrassed we ever invaded their country. I am extremely angry that I ever supported sending our own young people over there to die. And I know in my heart, that if I had been over there my blind hatred of these strange little 'worthless' creatures killing my fellow soldiers would have led me to engage in the same kind of atrocities against them. It is hard to understand why good people can become so bad, so irrational, so prejudice, so self serving, etc. I guess most all of us have the potential to be despicable to our very core. I hate that. I want to think that I would never, never, be senselessly cruel to others. But I was in my support of that war. I think now that truth lies in the Lincolnian principle ALL ANYONE CAN KNOW OR EXPRESS BEARS THE STAMP OF THE CULTURE, CONTEXT, AND SHARED WAY OF LIFE OF THEIR OWN PECULIAR ENVIRONMENT. Only when we understand this principle can we hope to achieve any real fairness towards others. Only when our religion becomes the Golden Rule as a mind set which overrides conflicting personal religious/political bias and family/wealth selfishness, can anyone be assured we ourselves do not become the kind of moral monsters capable of the kind of violence which needs so desperately to be ended across the globe.
Come back Abe, wherever you are.
