{"id":281920,"date":"2024-12-09T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=281920"},"modified":"2024-12-05T07:06:41","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T07:06:41","slug":"tearing-down-our-emotional-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/12\/tearing-down-our-emotional-walls\/","title":{"rendered":"Tearing Down Our Emotional Walls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>4 Dec 2024 <\/em>– War, war and more war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s only possible for one reason: the belief that only some people are fully human. Those who aren\u2019t . . . well, they can be killed when necessary. My inner scream at this false reality we feed ourselves \u2014 via the media, via mainstream politics \u2014 keeps getting louder and louder. Is there a way to get things to change?<\/p>\n

To put it another way: Is there a way to transcend the abstract view of Planet Earth in which global politics operates? We have religion. We have values: Be kind, be loving, \u201cdo unto others as you would have them do unto you\u201d \u2014 but they don\u2019t seem to manifest collectively. At the collective, that is to say, the political, level, only so much kindness can be tolerated. In terms of security, kindness is weakness.<\/p>\n

I quoted these words of Kamala Harris<\/a>, delivered last August at the DNC as she accepted her nomination to be the Dems\u2019 presidential candidate, in a previous column, but they still strike me as relevant, even though she lost the election:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, fellow Americans. Fellow Americans. I \u2014 I love our country with all my heart. Everywhere I go \u2014 everywhere I go, in everyone I meet, I see a nation that is ready to move forward. Ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that this is \u201can America where we care for one another, look out for one another and recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. That none of us \u2014 none of us has to fail for all of us to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wow, sounds great. Unfortunately, as I noted at the time, the love and empathy of which she spoke stopped at the border. In essence, she was expressing love for an abstraction, a swath of land defined by random lines on a map, created via several centuries of brutal land theft.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, I understand that love is specific. It has limits. We love our partner. We love our surroundings, our community. The problem, as Harris quickly went on to illustrate, is that \u201clove\u201d at the national level \u2014 a.k.a., nationalism \u2014 doesn\u2019t actually exist unless there\u2019s also an enemy: someone to fear. Our empathy stops at the border. And beyond the border . . .<\/p>\n

Harris continued: \u201cAnd America, we must also be steadfast in advancing our security and values abroad. As vice president, I have confronted threats to our security, negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances and engaged with our brave troops overseas. As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, how wonderful! The great lie manifests: We need that trillion-dollar annual military budget, America! How else can we remain secure? And our allies also have to remain secure: Israel has the right to defend itself (some love, apparently, does not stop at the border). And it\u2019s not as though Harris\u2019s opponent \u2014 what was his name again? \u2014 in any way challenged this basic context, nor did the prevailing media: There\u2019s always a \u201cthem\u201d out there, who hates us, who wants to steal what we have (what goes around comes around, I guess) . . . who wants to kill us.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019ve got to be prepared to kill him first \u2014 which means, dehumanize! And here\u2019s where my internal \u2014 and, at least in this moment, external \u2014 scream begins. I don\u2019t want to be led by a \u201ccommander in chief.\u201d I want humanity\u2019s understanding of itself to begin with the awareness of our collective, and planetary, unity. The time for this is now, for an endless number of reasons, all of which are related to the \u201csecurity\u201d our leaders claim to be so obsessed with.<\/p>\n

The most obvious reason, I guess, is that nobody wants nuclear war \u2014 yet Russia and the West are playing<\/a> with this possibility now, as the good guys and the bad guys fight it out in Ukraine. War is the only answer \u2014 defeat the enemy, bomb Russia! And Russia responds with \u201cinflammatory nuclear rhetoric,\u201d denounced by the West as, gosh, inappropriate. At some point this game could blow up in everyone\u2019s face. Yet in the current political dialogue, our security requires playing with global suicide. Any questions?<\/p>\n

And, of course, even if \u201cmutually assured destruction\u201d holds tight and humanity avoids nuclear Armageddon, the unaddressed climate crisis is something else that could explode in our faces. Shockingly, \u201cclimate\u201d doesn\u2019t recognize the borders we\u2019ve worked so hard to create.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m trying to say is that we \u2014 all of us \u2014 need to turn evolution into a conscious process. How do we connect with one another, especially those we fear? How do we expand our sense of community and shatter the hatred we now allow to swell unabated toward our declared enemies, especially those beyond our borders? How do we shatter the divide between spiritual and political values? How do we bring, let us say, the wisdom of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin<\/a> into the political realm?<\/p>\n

One of his most well-known quotes is this; \u201cSome day, after mastering the wind, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of Love, and then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do we explain \u2014 to the ones in power, to the ones who write about and bow to power \u2014 that, by \u201cdiscovering fire for the second time,\u201d Teilhard didn\u2019t mean developing nuclear weapons? How do we explain it to ourselves?<\/p>\n

Perhaps the place to begin is by removing the \u201cnational\u201d border from our minds and hearts.<\/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 <\/em>koehlercw@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

4 Dec 2024 – War, war and more war. It\u2019s possible because of the belief that only some people are fully human. Those who aren\u2019t . . . well, they can be killed when necessary. Is there a way to get things to change?<\/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":[1817,2009,1253,487,1496,307,688,481],"class_list":["post-281920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-anti-militarism","tag-anti-war","tag-demilitarization","tag-human-rights","tag-humanism","tag-humanity","tag-peace-journalism","tag-warfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281920","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=281920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281921,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281920\/revisions\/281921"}],"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=281920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}