Showing posts with label non-violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-violence. Show all posts
Saturday, July 21, 2012
We've met the enemy and it is us
For all the money this country has spent supposedly to fight Islamist terrorism, the real enemy is ourselves. A story in The Atlantic notes that since 9/11/2001, over 334,000 Americans have been killed by guns used by other Americans. So in that time period, 100 Americans have been killed by a fellow American for every 1 America killed by an Islamist terrorist. So maybe we should drop the canned talking points about how we need more gun control or how every child should be given a gun upon entering elementary school. And maybe we should talk more about how we can become a more civilized, less barbaric nation. Every nation has murderers, psychopaths and crazy people, but proportionally, our culture seems to produce a lot more of them proportionally. Let's look in the mirror.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
On non-violence
Normally, I post in these blogs my own thoughts. But today, I felt like publishing some of my favorite quotes. After how long this intro ended up, I decided to post the quotes separately.
Given the wars which the my government has chosen to fight at this moment in my name, it's not surprising that most of these quotes have to do with the folly of violence. I do not object to our military being used for the purpose of national self-defense. I just recognize that this is almost never it is deployed.
I've written before about those who initiate violence almost inevitably do so because they let ego get in the way of good judgement.
I'm repeatedly told that my generalized belief in non-violence as the best way to solve problems is naive. I believe the opposite is true.
As I wrote then: Look at all the damage and destruction and trauma that violence has caused over the millenia. And remember, I'm not just talking about militaristic violence, but physical and verbal violence as well. Societies and families torn apart. Progress stopped in its tracks. Millions of lives lost. Many times more lives ruined.
For anyone to believe that violence is a long-term solution to any problem given its miserable failure of a history, that's about the most naive thing anyone can possibly believe in.
When I was younger, I was a bit more casual about war. This is not to say I thought it was great. But I was a bit casual about the whole thing. The generally accepted framework in this country is to be casual about advocating military force against another country.
My 'Eureka' moment was really a period: the two years I spent in Guinea, West Africa. Guinea bordered two countries that were at war at the time: Liberia and Sierra Leone. There were over half a million refugees from those two countries living in Guinea. I became acquainted with several of them.
The wars in those countries were originally started for the purpose of overthrowing the corrupt military dictatorship in Sierra Leone and the fanatical Samuel Doe dictatorship in Liberia. But every single refugee I knew would gladly have returned to the days of the order of the strong man rather than the continuing nightmare that plagued their countries. I knew that Samuel Doe was a lunatic so to hear people saying they preferred him to the present of 1996 was an eye opening experience. But I suppose that even the corrupt military dictatorship in Sierra Leone didn't chop people's arms and hands off like the 'liberation' movement did.
Few Americans have experienced war and even fewer have experienced it as a civilian. But the simple human reality is this. The tyranny of chaos is worse that tyranny of authoritarianism. This is the law of unintended consequences that always applies to war, as the planners of the Iraq debacle are finding out.
My visit to a refugee camp was one of the most profound experiences of my life. The misery found at camps like that, not a shining democratic city on a hill or two bits of paper with a meaningless constitution on it, is the true face of war. The true face of war is hunger, suffering and despair. And the worst victims are not men with guns but unarmed women and children.
And this is where I truly learned that violence should only ever be used as an absolute last resort. Many people say this but few mean it. Violence should never be used because we get a little impatient or because someone said our president's mama wears combat boots or because we get our national nose out of joint or because the military-industrial complex needs a new enemy of the week or because the UN secretary-general won't carry our water or because weapons inspectors tell the truth instead of what we want to hear.
And most importantly, we should never, EVER impose the tyranny of chaos on innocent people who don't ask for it. We DON'T HAVE THAT RIGHT!
Violence doesn't end problems. It just creates new ones.
How to help:
If people want to support the troops, they can do so by getting them out of unnecessary harm's way. I think we should focus our efforts on helping those who we put in harm's way without the benefit of guns, flack jackets, tanks and backup. The casualties of war who don't have the American military-industrial complex behind them. The victims of war who never chose to be a part of it.
-The UN refugee agency
-The International Rescue Committee
-The American Refugee Committee
-The Red Cross
-Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
Given the wars which the my government has chosen to fight at this moment in my name, it's not surprising that most of these quotes have to do with the folly of violence. I do not object to our military being used for the purpose of national self-defense. I just recognize that this is almost never it is deployed.
I've written before about those who initiate violence almost inevitably do so because they let ego get in the way of good judgement.
I'm repeatedly told that my generalized belief in non-violence as the best way to solve problems is naive. I believe the opposite is true.
As I wrote then: Look at all the damage and destruction and trauma that violence has caused over the millenia. And remember, I'm not just talking about militaristic violence, but physical and verbal violence as well. Societies and families torn apart. Progress stopped in its tracks. Millions of lives lost. Many times more lives ruined.
For anyone to believe that violence is a long-term solution to any problem given its miserable failure of a history, that's about the most naive thing anyone can possibly believe in.
When I was younger, I was a bit more casual about war. This is not to say I thought it was great. But I was a bit casual about the whole thing. The generally accepted framework in this country is to be casual about advocating military force against another country.
My 'Eureka' moment was really a period: the two years I spent in Guinea, West Africa. Guinea bordered two countries that were at war at the time: Liberia and Sierra Leone. There were over half a million refugees from those two countries living in Guinea. I became acquainted with several of them.
The wars in those countries were originally started for the purpose of overthrowing the corrupt military dictatorship in Sierra Leone and the fanatical Samuel Doe dictatorship in Liberia. But every single refugee I knew would gladly have returned to the days of the order of the strong man rather than the continuing nightmare that plagued their countries. I knew that Samuel Doe was a lunatic so to hear people saying they preferred him to the present of 1996 was an eye opening experience. But I suppose that even the corrupt military dictatorship in Sierra Leone didn't chop people's arms and hands off like the 'liberation' movement did.
Few Americans have experienced war and even fewer have experienced it as a civilian. But the simple human reality is this. The tyranny of chaos is worse that tyranny of authoritarianism. This is the law of unintended consequences that always applies to war, as the planners of the Iraq debacle are finding out.
My visit to a refugee camp was one of the most profound experiences of my life. The misery found at camps like that, not a shining democratic city on a hill or two bits of paper with a meaningless constitution on it, is the true face of war. The true face of war is hunger, suffering and despair. And the worst victims are not men with guns but unarmed women and children.
And this is where I truly learned that violence should only ever be used as an absolute last resort. Many people say this but few mean it. Violence should never be used because we get a little impatient or because someone said our president's mama wears combat boots or because we get our national nose out of joint or because the military-industrial complex needs a new enemy of the week or because the UN secretary-general won't carry our water or because weapons inspectors tell the truth instead of what we want to hear.
And most importantly, we should never, EVER impose the tyranny of chaos on innocent people who don't ask for it. We DON'T HAVE THAT RIGHT!
Violence doesn't end problems. It just creates new ones.
How to help:
If people want to support the troops, they can do so by getting them out of unnecessary harm's way. I think we should focus our efforts on helping those who we put in harm's way without the benefit of guns, flack jackets, tanks and backup. The casualties of war who don't have the American military-industrial complex behind them. The victims of war who never chose to be a part of it.
-The UN refugee agency
-The International Rescue Committee
-The American Refugee Committee
-The Red Cross
-Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
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