Is Peace Possible?
BC comic strip -Thor the Futurist: A cave man asks Thor "Will there ever be an end to war?" Thor's answer "Yes! About 8 minutes after the Sun explodes."
Not with Trump’s Board of Peace. It would fundamentally work like the UN. But under new leadership. Without fixing the UN’s
basic flaw - its foundation is the illusion
of independence. In a world where everything is connected, interdependent and vulnerable. It maintains the protection of national sovereignty and wealth above
the protection of human rights and nature.
World peace will not come from establishing Trump’s “Board
of Peace”. But humankind is not bored of
peace yet. Not now, with more conflicts in the last 25 years than in the previous
quarter century. If you haven’t noticed, the world’s progressive peace movement
with its thousands of peace organizations hasn’t been working. Even if they united, they could not overpower the
national leaders who are so deeply committed now to the global paradigm of Peace
through Strength – they are willing to let their nations go into bankruptcy or all
go bust with WMD.
Here’s the problem in one word. Ambiguoius. The word “Peace” is ambiguous with every human
ambition having a different definition. The Truth is, Peace is a divisive word. And trying to redefine it in our era of mounting
Truth decay, political polarization, border disputes, the weaponization of
everything, failing democracies, and rising tensions between an axis of tyranny
and the instability of the axis of freedom -- not to mention the unknown future
with AI‘s intervention in the evolution of weaponry as well as its own power, it’s
a sure bet that world peace will not come even if 40 million or more people,
play the Peace Game. You read that right.
It’s a real game! Based on a decades
old “Theory of Change” that assumes that if just one-tenth of one percent of the
world’s people started taking small actions toward peace – we would have peace
by 2030. Rotary members are now being
coached to play it between when they are not asking themselves the first question
in their genius 4-way Test, “Is it the TRUTH?” As a Rotary member having
studies peace and all other threats to human security for 4.5 decades, I assert
it is “FAIR” that “all” Rotary members should be “concerned”.
A few years ago, I asked a wise Rotarian of 40+ years of ‘service
above self’ what his “definition of peace” was.
He answered, “That depends on if you ask the policeman - or the
protester.” Now, with federal ICE
officials murdering people when it feels right -while having the backing of
their federal overseers, they are not building “GOODWILL & BETTER
FRIENDSHIPS” with the 70% of Americans who are not MAGA devotees. And this will not be “BENEFICIAL to all
concerned!”
What is urgently needed here now and globally is a
comprehensive, holistic, and synergistic effort at preventing violence. As well
as every other form of human rights abuse known to humankind or nature’s vital environmental
life support systems.
There’s only one word for this approach. It’s called Health!
And starting with mental health. By
first transforming the concepts in our mind to prioritize cooperation and
coordination among humankind, instead of competition and chaos between different
religious, political, and economic views.
Next would be ensuring everyone’s healthy body, family,
community, environment, government, and economic system, plus the health of our
human spirit.
Fortunately, there’s a global plan already in place. In 2015
most of the world’s Non-Governmental Organizations and other concerned entities
came together at the United Nations in NY. They finally agreed to and signed
off on the 17th Sustainable Development Goals.
All to be achieved by the year 2030. With only four years away from that goal – humanity
is nowhere near achieving this wise endeavor.
With the world appearing crazy now from any perspectives, the
most insanity can be found in the three progressive movements (Peace, Environment,
and economic/social Justice) and their perpetual competition with each other
for money, active members, media attention, and their access to key policy
makers to urge favor for their particular mission.
Meanwhile, professional advocate leaders ignore the need of
these movements to unite in common cause. And instead empower some to compete
against each other for a limited amount of essential resources.
This has gone on for decades. With each movement, gambling
on a different result. There are two names for this behavior. Insanity and extinction. Any living thing’s failure to adapt will not
turn out well as environments change.
And our global environment’s irreversible interconnectedness has only
increased while our minds and outdated governance systems have basically remained
the same.
Perhaps with enough pain and suffering it might change their
bubble mentality. The finally unite to
create heaven on earth with its unprecedent economic and technological wealth. But don’t hold onto your lungs CO2.
The resistance of the human mind to change - and doing the wise
thing - is nearly impossible.
Peace would be possible if humankind adopted the ideals within
the American Declaration of Independence. Its 250th anniversary is
coming up in about 156 days. There are two phrases within we must contemplate.
The first and most important “the Laws of Nature end of Nature‘s God.” Take care of nature and each other. The second is “…all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to
which they are accustomed.”
This reflects the global movement’s failures to adapt. They prefer their own favorite mission priorities.
But not the single priority that humankind needs – achieving the UN 17th Sustainable
Development, Goals. And time is running
out. The acceleration of the evolution
of weapons, pathogens, truth decay, political polarization, and mental insanity
will not end well. And time is not on
our side. Only by uniting do we stand a
decent chance of pulling us away from this brink in wishful thinking.
"One day, hopefully, the globe will be civilized. All
the points of the human dwelling will be illuminated and then the magnificent
dream of intelligence will be fulfilled: to have the World as our homeland and
Humanity as our nation." Victor HUGO 1802–1885
"The unification
of all humanity is a sign of the stage now approaching human society. The unity
of the family, of the tribe, of the city, of the nation has been successively
tried and fully established. Nation-building has come to an end. The anarchy
inherent in the sovereignty of the state is reaching its climax; a world that
is progressing towards maturity must abandon this fetish, it must recognize the
organic unity and wholeness of human relations, and establish once and for all
the mechanism that best embodies this fundamental principle of its existence.” Shoghi Effendi Appel aux
Nations,
"Belonging to the human family confers on every person
a kind of world citizenship, giving him rights and duties, men being united by
a community of origin and destiny supreme. (...) The condemnation of racism,
the protection of minorities, assistance to refugees and the mobilization of
international solidarity towards those most in need are only coherent
applications of the principle of world citizenship." John Paul II
(01/01/2005)
“Think of the rivers
of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that in glory and in
triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction, of a dot.” Carl
Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist and Cosmologist
“I'm not from Athens or Corinth, I'm a citizen of the
world." Socrate.
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