{"id":215337,"date":"2022-06-20T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=215337"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:36:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:36:55","slug":"embracing-the-complexity-of-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/06\/embracing-the-complexity-of-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing the Complexity of Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>15 Jun 2022 – <\/em>\u201cJust imagine for once if we led the world in funding peace and not wars.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just imagine! The words are those of Robert Weissman, president of the organization Public Citizen, in response to the legislative efforts of Reps. Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan, who are the co-chairs of \u2014 glory hallelujah! \u2014 the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus. They recently introduced legislation<\/a> that would cut Pentagon spending by $100 billion<\/em> and divert the money to programs that actually helped the country . . . e.g., universal health care, ending child poverty, saving the environment.<\/p>\n

Yeah, just imagine. One can also quickly, unavoidably imagine the cynicism that rushes in whenever someone tosses out the word \u201cpeace.\u201d Then it\u2019s all pushed to the margins, both political and social, as America continues its business as usual, which is all about protecting itself from enemies (most of whom it creates). The sales pitch is fear. The motive, hidden in the shadows, is extraordinary profit for some.<\/p>\n

The problem begins with the words themselves, which turn two complex, infinitely different enterprises \u2014 war and peace \u2014 into two items on a knick-knack shelf . . .a plastic G.I. Joe, let\u2019s say, and a cute little angel. That\u2019s the essence of the American \u201cdebate\u201d about what matters and what it should do with its wealth. The debate is cynicism-fueled and simplistic, reducing \u201cpeace,\u201d in particular, to a weakling\u2019s counterpart to war. When the focus is on war, you always know what to do next. Say the wrong guy (Joe Biden, for instance), gets elected president:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have to do a bloody, massively bloody revolution against them. That\u2019s what\u2019s going to have to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speaker is the currently incarcerated Elmer Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers<\/a>, who, of course, played a major role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. His words are both stunning and completely ho-hum \u201cnormal.\u201d Declare an enemy, then kill it. What about that do you not understand?<\/p>\n

The thing is, this attitude isn\u2019t just rightwing nutballicosity. This is red, white and blue, \u201cmission accomplished,\u201d ever-increasing-defense-budget America. \u201cJust imagine for once if we led the world in funding peace and not wars.\u201d Everybody knows this is virtually impossible to imagine beyond the realm of the fairytale. What would that even mean? Funding peace, creating peace \u2014 this is deeply complex, and too many Americans, certainly too many of those in leadership positions, don\u2019t have time for complexity.<\/p>\n

How, for instance, do we deal with all those inconvenient mass shootings, at schools, shopping malls, churches, etc.? Gun control isn\u2019t the answer because people need access to assault rifles and such \u2014 in America we have the freedom to protect ourselves (just ask George Zimmerman). The guys who do those mass shootings are lone wolves and usually mentally ill, so we need to amp up our mental health efforts, which, mind you, doesn\u2019t actually mean funding mental health programs (the Pentagon needs that money). Is there another option?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aftermath of the attack also unleashed a call by several prominent Republicans to arm teachers.,\u201d according to Common Dreams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And to that end, Ohio\u2019s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, recently signed a bill \u201cpermitting teachers to carry a gun to class after just 24 hours of firearms training.\u201d This is down from the 700 hours of training previously required of school personnel. What could possibly go wrong with that?<\/p>\n

\u201cA madness has taken hold,\u201d tweeted the NAACP\u2019s Sherrilyn Ifill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That seems to be the case \u2014 or so it seems beyond the world of guns and violence and easy solutions. In his book The Powers That Be<\/em>, Walter Wink<\/a> talks about \u201cthe myth of redemptive violence\u201d: the belief that violence saves us. Indeed, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem to be mythic in the least,\u201d he wrote. \u201cViolence simply appears to be in the nature of things. It\u2019s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a helluva god to worship and obey. Here are some stats: In 2020, the most recent year that data is available, 45,222<\/a> people in the United States were killed by guns. Nearly 53 people are killed by guns every day.<\/p>\n

And across the various oceans, at least a million people have died in recent American wars \u2014 in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and other countries. And, oh yeah, more than 30,000 American veterans have committed suicide in the wake of those wars, according to the Costs of War Project<\/a>, seeming to indicate that the god of redemptive violence isn\u2019t the only one we worship. For many people, another God appears in the wake of war and violence, especially when someone is all alone with himself\/herself. Suddenly lives \u2014 lost lives \u2014 may start to matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWasteful defense spending does not make our communities safer \u2014 it only weakens our ability to respond to crises,\u201d said Congresswoman Lee.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s referring, of course, to complex responses: providing food and health care for the hungry, the ill; addressing the deep causes of crime and social instability; listening to people and healing wounds rather than being content with punishment and armed self-defense; allowing our empathy to transcend national borders; rethinking our relationship with Planet Earth and placing our priorities on sustaining rather than exploiting it.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust imagine for once if we led the world in funding peace and not wars.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Jun 2022 – Just imagine for once if we led the world in funding peace and not wars. One can also quickly, unavoidably imagine the cynicism that rushes in whenever someone tosses out the word \u201cpeace.\u201d Just imagine for once if we led the world in funding peace and not wars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[443,119,2433],"class_list":["post-215337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-culture-of-peace","tag-peace","tag-peacebuilding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274899,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215337\/revisions\/274899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}