PEACE is NOT the answer.

 I’ve been in and around the “peace movement” for nearly 54 years...since the Vietnam draft.   That war was horrible, inexcusable, and preventable.  Same as the first Gulf War.  And the War on Terrorism. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

If we (the US or humanity) had waged war against world hunger and poverty with an equal economic and human resource investment that we poured into wars that most people were against...those wars could have been prevented.

Before we can achieve anything it must first be defined.  Unfortunately, there is no clear definition of  “Peace” or war.   And, so far, the paradigm of “peace through strength” has been winning...and very expensive.   Even though lately - we have been losing wars.  

Fundamentally, violent wars between nation-states persist because nations put the protection of national sovereignty (‘independence’ and their ‘special interests’) above the protection of human rights and the environment.  This will never end until we end this dysfunctional world paradigm that puts the supremacy of national sovereignty over the defense of inalienable human rights and our environment. 

For over five decades the progressive “peace movement” has devoted most of its time and resources believing that ‘peace’ was a function of disarmament.  Pacifism and non-violence can be helpful.  But not against genocidal movements targeting the elimination (mass murder) of a minority.

In reality, peace will never be a function of armaments or disarmament.  The abolition of intentional mass murder against innocent people will only come when ‘we the people' of the world insist on ‘liberty and justice for all” from each of our own governments.  Every American has pledged this before our flag. Yet we have never come together to ensure the protection of universal human rights globally. 

Within weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s president wisely stated that “Freedom must be better armed than tyranny”.  Yet our government prohibited air defenses over Ukraine in the context of preventing nuclear war (‘peace’ between the US and Russia) when direct violence against the Russian invaders inside Ukraine was completely justified.  Ukrainians were not fighting for peace.  They are fighting for their national and individual freedom and security.   Their ‘peace’ was too easily violated by another nation’s interest.

Besides food and sex, freedom and security are the two most basic hardwired human desires.  Peace is not one of them.  Poverty, hunger, infectious diseases, and natural disasters have taken more lives and crippled more innocent people than wars and genocides combined.  People don’t want peace if it means their children will die of starvation or easily preventable malnutrition and infectious diseases.  Just because their own government ignored them.

To the degree that we Americans put our own national interests above those of other nations’ people, we are traitors to our nation’s primary foundational document, the Declaration of Independence.  What is so complicated about all people possessing certain God-given rights at birth?   Elected officials, soldiers, and public service officers pledge an oath to protect the Constitution.  An oath that too often violates “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” when our laws are legally passed under our current Constitutional system.  And “We the people” have failed to amend it when our laws clearly violate these two fundamental sets of laws – “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.  Do we need another civil war to motivate us to make sufficient amendments to ensure “liberty and justice for all”?

I have made this pledge thousands of times.  God willing I will continue to wage war on the ignorance, apathy, and indifference of people who I believe know better, but have not yet recognized the outrageous global consequences.    I know deep in their hearts their desire to do and be good.  But too often feeling good and looking good is a higher priority.   We can and must do better.  Seeking “Peace” that makes us feel good is insufficient.   Feelings cannot achieve ‘liberty and justice for all’ without a commitment to action to make it happen.

I love Rotary!  Rotary had me at ‘the four-way test’, and its unyielding service to others.  I believe that what I have just vented regarding “peace” - is the truth.  And peace is not always fair to all concerned. It might build goodwill and better friendships. Do not believe it will be beneficial to all concerned.  

The service to humanity that Rotary has accomplished since its foundation should earn it the Nobel Peace prize.   My only disappointment is that Rotary has not made it a priority to transform the current world paradigm that creates so much preventable human death and suffering.   

This quote by Dom Helder Camara, a Brazilian Catholic archbishop explains why this trouble’s me.  “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” 

Existing government systems and structures in the US and globally have not heeded the wise words of Thomas Paine, in his pamphlet “Common Sense”.  He was certain that the only legitimate “design and end of government is the protection of people’s “freedom and security”.

Abraham Lincoln wrote that our Declaration of Independence is our “Apple of Gold” and our Constitution its “Frame of Silver” (a biblical reference).

In his, I Have a Dream speech Martin Luther King, Jr. called the Declaration of Independence a “promissory note” of freedom.  A debt that is owed both domestically, and globally.

I know from experience that this will not change your mind or the mind of many others. 
And I assert that this is the cognitive dissonance problem that will continue to sustain violence.  Until violence ends us.