Tag Archives: economy

America’s Oldest Enemy Batters the Flag

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A sudden thunderstorm caught me as I walked in my neighborhood recently, some weeks after Independence Day. In the calm following the wind and rain, I found myself ducking in and out of yard after yard to indignantly prop up and replant all the little made-in-China plastic flags which had blown over into undignified little crash-sites. I felt a deep sadness at the thought that my country relies upon such a thin, flag-waving kind of patriotism to keep it safe and prosperous in such stormy times. Shallow nationalism can never protect us from the coming tumults of the twenty-first century, because nationalism too often puts short-term national greed and safety above the very reasonable right of all peoples everywhere, ourselves included, to live life in peace, and to build within our own cultural traditions and with the generous and peaceful support of others, ever more justice, freedom, and opportunity.

 

America recently has had a difficult time getting its arms around that oh-so-important concept of a universally agreed-upon, despisable national “enemy.” “Terrorists” and “terrorism” worked for a while, at least so long as people could conceive of unprovoked armies of irrational suicidal Islamic extremist nutcases eager to kill innocents for world domination. Thanks to our still-free press and internet, we are finally learning that what Islam wants most is to be left to live and conduct their own affairs in peace. Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese, even members of Hamas and Hezbollah, are not the maniacal fanatics we were once convinced were so envious of our freedoms that they continually plotted to invade America, to randomly kill, destroy, steal our resources, and ravage our way of life.

 

Unfortunately, too many Muslims believe that this is exactly what American leadership is about.

 

Because by flag-waving and fear-mongering, by arguing specialized expertise and inside knowledge, by offering leaky rationales about why America should aggressively “protect” not only our own country but others’ as well, narrow-minded and unrepresentative American leaders sometimes do indeed seem bent upon terrorizing everyone everywhere—Americans included.

 

Who gains from this insanity? A handful of wealthy political insiders and war profiteers who pocket the billions in war money our citizenry pours out—along with our children’s blood—tax money which should have been spent on worthwhile causes at home and abroad, and which is instead buying more fear, and its progeny—anger, vengeance, guilt, cruelty, misery, hatred. Soon, even more of our hard-earned money will be required to restore good will and rebuild destruction, money which will once again fill the coffers of rich opportunists.

 

A tragic result of American expansionism is a generation of angry, fearful, vengeful, polarized American citizens who have swallowed a steady diet of Limbaughesque propaganda justifying endless wars and goading a steady supply of soldiers. I recently heard a caller assert on C-Span that “America has the right to kill every man, woman and child in Lebanon because….” Whatever nonsense followed the word “because,” I shudder to think any human could place his faith in a theory which morally or legally justifies wiping out a whole country. And yet, to many Americans, “Nuke ‘em!” is the final solution to all our political problems.

 

We live in the richest, best-armed, most powerful nation the world has ever known, and yet we have become convinced that we should be the most frightened and the most belligerent.

 

Wiser leaders would work to create a peaceful, helpful, cooperative foreign policy and educational system (beginning by passing the excellent legislation establishing a cabinet-level Department of Peace—(see www.thepeacealliance.org .) We could sustain a patient, accepting American citizenry skilled in peace-making in both their personal and political lives, rather than continually advocate for the morality of threatening and killing as a solution for political challenges. As Islamic nations do, we should condemn all wars except those against invaders who violently attempt to invade and conquer our homelands.

 

Many Christians hope their faith will spread around the world (and many proselytize to spread it); just so do many Muslims hope their faith will eventually prevail globally. No one knows what the future holds, and only time will tell. So far, though, no Muslims (unless you count allies the West selects, empowers, and backs, like Saddam Hussein) violently invade and occupy others’ countries, nor commandeer others’ valuable resources, nor force changes in others’ institutions at the point of a gun.

 

In this heavily-armed world, as in all previous worlds, only one enemy has ever pressed for world domination, only one enemy strives ceaselessly to throw every nation into never-ending inhumane wars. That enemy is neither terrorist, nor fanatic, nor extremist, neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Muslim, neither Fascism, nor Nazism, nor Communism, nor globalization.

 

The common enemy of mankind, the one ever urging us toward war and torture and every other kind of terror, is fear—in all its forms—fear of change, fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of the unknown and unfamiliar and different, fear of want, fear of death and loss, fear of despair, fear of the past, fear of abandonment, fear of guilt and blame, fear of losing control, fear of being helpless and hurt, fear of being wrong….

 

This universal enemy of all mankind—this eternal enemy of Islam and the West alike—will always be fear itself (one name for what many traditional religions call “the devil.”) And what is fear’s remedy? Love, in all its forms—diplomacy, dialogue, negotiation, ideas, faith, hope, trust, cooperation, cultural exchange, understanding, love, kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, peace….

 

The very concept of the word, “enemy,” is itself a fear-based mistake. Instead of “allies” and “enemies,” we could choose—both personally and nationally—to see all people everywhere, ourselves included, as variously falling intermittently into either of two very similar camps—people currently offering help, and people who currently need help.

 

Human beings everywhere quite reasonably wish to preserve what they see as their good old ways, to expand their influence and power, and insure their future security. Yet patriotism/nationalism cannot work, on this small, interconnected, fragile planet, so long as people see “others” of different nations as less valuable, less important, and somehow separate from “us.” Patriotism/nationalism can only fail whenever it stands in opposition to the highest universal human value—support and respect for the quality of human life everywhere. The only rule which works in human relations—both personal and international—is the Golden Rule, treating all others as we would want all others to treat us.

 

Until Americans stand up together in perfect love to courageously cast out fear, until we proudly support the unselfish ideals which unite us all as Americans—the values proclaiming the equality of all men and the inalienable right of all people everywhere to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—America will continue to be vulnerable to a relentless battery of fearful twenty-first century storms.

 

 

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

A Simple, Secular/Religious, Universal Political “Theme” that Unites and Resonates….

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I would like to suggest that progressives consider uniting under a unifying banner of “golden rule politics.”
The golden rule is a familiar universal principle embraced by a wide variety of secular philosophers and spiritual/religious thinkers alike for thousands of years; it turns out to offer not only the best guideline for human relationships, but an equally sound basis for 21st century, one-small-planet domestic- and foreign policy-making.

Golden rule politics offer candidates and elected policy- and decision-makers three key ethical guidelines/questions:

1. Does this policy treat all others as we would wish to be treated?

2. Does this policy hold us all to the same high standards we require of others?

3. Does this policy/action take as its highest guiding principle, “support and respect for the quality of human life everywhere?”

All the various platforms put forward by America's many current progressive movements, as well as all of our pressing long-term national interests, are subsumed under this simple, appealing theme. Democratic party leaders should consider adopting this memorable and media-friendly slogan/metaphor, too. (However, don't rush to claim it before the Republicans get to it; golden rule politics are anathema to all that most Republicans leaders currently stand for–which is an intriguing and useful distinction, actually.)

Americans long for and intuitively respect leadership based in values. We are all finally coming to realize that our contemporary greedy, me-first political approaches are morally bankrupt, and cannot offer us–or our beloved nation–prosperity, respect, or security.

Golden rule politics can unite us all within a party of the people, because golden rule politics turn out to be, upon thoughtful consideration, not only realistic, practical, and profound, but also genuinely hopeful and caring–a winning combination.

A new cabinet-level Department of Peace would play an important role in applying golden rule politics in support of policy- and decision-making.

 

Please send comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net .

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Best and the Dimmest

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The other day, changing clothes at the YMCA, I chatted with a delightful stranger, a twin in her fifties who apparently has never competed with her identical twin sister (and best friend) in anything. Not during their childhood, not as teenagers, not as wives and mothers, not even now since their kids had grown. I was flabbergasted.

 

In brutal contrast, I grew up in an extremely competitive household. My three sisters and I spent considerable youthful (and later, adult) energy attempting to best one another in every arena, whether trivial or significant. We carved our egos, our veriest identities, out of what shreds were left after thoroughly wrestling and wringing out every possible family title.

 

We gambled madly for the unpredictable prize of my parents’ attention and approval, and they thus unwittingly encouraged our many rivalries, although they also greatly wearied of our constant bickering. Probably they encouraged us to compete because they thought competition would make us strive for excellence. Or perhaps they generalized that, since competition in capitalism and on the athletic fields of battle was considered so wonderful, surely family competition must be good, too.

 

It isn’t.

 

Whether I “won” or “lost,” my sibling rivalries always left me feeling cold, mean, and alienated. When I triumphed over a sister in some area, I felt a little smug, and very guilty. When I came up short—much more often—I felt inadequate, resentful, defeatist, and again, lonely.

 

I’ve always been fascinated with twins and twin studies, so I peppered my new acquaintance with questions. I insisted that at the very least, she identify some little, unimportant area that she was now “better” at than her twin—some divergent hobby or lifetime interest, some skill so minor as baking a cake, for instance. No. She was adamant that she could think of no examples. None. Neither she nor her twin were superior in any achievements or endowments.

 

I concluded that either these twins had always eschewed comparisons as hurtful and unpleasant; or that their minds just didn’t work in these terms; or, perhaps, that competition was just not particularly interesting to them. Gwen ventured to guess that maybe it was a combination of all three. In any case, no, they had never competed, probably never would, she had never thought about it before, and had never been asked about it, to her knowledge.

 

Wow. In my family, identical twins, on exactly equal genetic starting lines, would have relished the challenge and competed at absolutely everything. I wonder how happily that would have turned out?

 

Either way, Gwen and Jackie’s delightfully mutually supportive and sharing relationship has to be preferable to whatever unfriendly rivalry we would have come up with in our family.

 

Now I’m wondering if perhaps all competition is a bad thing….

 

Having been reared in a family (and culture) which greatly values competition, I never really considered how harmful it might be for me, for my family of birth, my own children, or even for American citizens and other “competing” nations. I’ve never thought about how useless competition really is, especially considering its costs, considering what is lost. Yet few other cultures, many far more ancient, value competition in the way Americans do. Certainly, for that reason, if for no other, we should question the value of competition.

 

If I were raising my own children again now, I would frown on any hint of competitiveness “against” one another, and make sure they understood that friendly competition was a kind gift from someone else who was helping them in their struggle to better themselves. I would do my best to guide my kids to strive for their own personal bests, reserving their comparisons and judgments only for their own goals for self-improvement. I would try to help them see how harmful competition can be to relationships, and how it can also be mutually supportive (as when one encourages others in their striving for self-improvement) or really unkind and hurtful (“besting” or beating someone.)

 

I’ve even come around to wondering whether the loftily unassailable idea of competition-as-intrinsic-to-capitalism, is harmful. We must work hard to convey the message that the only moral competition is the friendly kind that is mutually supportive in helping one another strive for excellence, because the fruits of unfriendly competition are always sad ones—envy, anger, resentment, even for the “victor,” who must also contend with dangerous feelings of overreaching, pride, and arrogance.

 

Here’s what I’ve decided: whenever we compete “against” another, whether as individuals, groups, or nations, that competition works against our highest goals, ideals, and purposes. Any time we move away from simple, personal or cooperative effort, towards something as mean-spirited as hurtful competition, we move toward erasure of mankind’s highest ethical standard, the “golden rule”— treating others as we would like to be treated—and move instead toward “all’s fair in love and war,” a smarmy slogan which conveniently discards morality and ethics as low-priority whenever something newly urgent feels at stake.

 

If U.S. capitalism has worked well in the past, it’s not because of business competition, but because people with freedom and opportunities and resources have pursued excellence, which springs only from friendly competition, which springs from cooperative values such as caring, fairness, and honesty, and personal virtues like hard work and perseverance.

 

Abuse of the idea of competition provides us with a too-handy mask, an illusion of moral nobility or superiority, for the times when we want to feel good about running roughshod over someone else, to get what we want.

 

Our most amazing athletes and athletic competitions are so wonderful because unique individuals like Lance Armstrong and Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods surround themselves with other great athletes in order to challenge themselves—to continually strive for excellence, to achieve their own personal bests, their own highest standards—not to conquer or best someone else.

 

Since I’ve met the twins, I’ve withdrawn my support from any competitions—whether in families, sports, business, or politics, whether local or global—that divide, separate, or polarize relationships, organizations, or nations.

 

Because such unfriendly competition, apparently, has never improved anything—not a single relationship, not a single enterprise on this tiny, fragile, interconnected planet, where every thing we do impacts everyone else, where every thing we think touches every other mind, and where we share the very air we breathe and every drop we drink.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

I Have Seen the Future of Latino Immigration—and It Is Good

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The hair on my arms stood up as I tuned in my car radio to the raucous enthusiasm of the immigrant protest rally aired recently on C-Span. It was “déjà vu all over again” as I recalled my own youthful experiences with immigrants and racism in the very hispanic city of San Antonio.

 

For I have seen the future of Latino immigration in America before, and it is good.

 

My military family moved to San Antonio during the late 1950’s, my middle school years. We had already moved eight times before, and I spent five of those years learning in overseas post schools along with a multiracial and multiethnic group of classmates all living middle-class lives. Transferring now into a San Antonio off-post public school situated in a sharply divided socioeconomic setting, I was surprised to be suddenly thrown in among a very large number of poor latinos, and shocked to see how unkindly they were treated by my anglo classmates.

 

My youthful ideals and sensibilities were greatly offended by such discrimination, but like many—perhaps most—youthful innocents, I was confused and easily led by the mean immoral majority, who quickly taught this eager new girl that “we” didn’t “like” “them”—and certainly didn’t mix with them.

 

My parents weren’t much help either. When I protested the injustice I saw so clearly at school, they lamely agreed with my moral indignation against racism, but also strongly registered their preference that I not choose to socialize with children who weren’t “like us”—i.e., clean, educated, privileged, advantaged.

 

A few of my teachers treated all students respectfully, but the general consensus about “meskins” in my school was a sweeping generalization that they were, as a race, all dirty, poor, immoral, violent, sneaky, and “too stupid” to know how to speak English. The convenient filter of race soon blurred my eyes to the many differences among these children, and eventually I clumped them all, even the occasional middle-class and native-English speaking exceptions, into the same rejected bunch I thought of as “mexican.”

 

Through whispered conversations, I soon “knew” what my schoolmates “knew”—that all these kids were children of “illegals” who had snuck across the river, and were now sneaking around in bushes and backrooms doing filthy jobs our parents wouldn't dream of doing, living in hovels, and probably stealing and breaking other laws too. We exchanged warnings about their poor side of town: don’t go near the San Antonio River unless you want to get knifed by a “mex”…. The wealthiest among my friends claimed to “own a ‘wet’ (‘wetback’) or two,” whom their parents kept hidden away on distant ranches in shacks stocked with sacks of beans, to chop cedar and clear brush in the searing sun, at the cost of pennies a day.

 

My classmates generally viewed the influx of Mexican immigrants with suspicion and disgust. Sometimes we sneered at them, even fought them as they grouped together defensively—but mostly we ignored them. I went, too quickly, from feeling righteously indignant, to apathy, to feeling more “in the know” about the “appropriate” way to feel and act—that is, prejudicially.

 

Of course, I knew nothing about how hard it can be to get ahead when you’re poor, or the immense barriers of linguistic disadvantage, or the challenges of a new life in a different culture, especially an illegal life. I saw without recognizing only the commonalities of poverty; indeed, many of my Latino classmates were very dirty, their clothes were smelly, they did seem ignorant, and they spoke English poorly.

 

I’m especially sad when I remember how kind many of the Latino children were to me when I first enrolled. Many seemed friendly, attractive, and fun to this lonely new girl. Too quickly, though, I “knew better” and pulled away from them, frightened by the strong social prohibition against socializing with “mexes.” I had already begun to make friends with some who were probably pleasantly surprised to be greeted initially with no prejudice; I’m sure my transformation and confused withdrawal hurt many feelings.

 

Fast-forward now forty years, to the year my family returned to San Antonio to care for my dying father. To my delight, I found San Antonio completely changed, a bright, working city ornamented by a proud Hispanic cultural heritage. During that difficult year of family losses, all of my childhood prejudices were firmly replaced with admiration and deep gratitude, as I worked my way through a long line of outstanding care-giving and service professionals, nearly all native-English speaking, educated, middle and upper-class Latinos.

 

From that ragtag bunch of schoolmates of yesteryear, no doubt themselves largely parented by penniless, ignorant laborers who dared their way across the border, had come this impressive line of smiling, capable, courteous, faith-driven professionals. Where “mexicans” had previously been relegated only to San Antonio’s lowest social classes, now they were the home-care aides who tenderly washed and fed my father, the capable nurses who treated him, the orderlies who gently attended him in hospital, the capable doctors who set his broken hip, the hospice workers who comforted us, the owners of the funeral home, and the directors who helped us plan his funeral.

Latinos now ably ran much of the city, blending in with the anglo minority attractively—and patriotically. As I hurried through busy days, helpful Latino faces sold me groceries and hardware, delivered our packages, repaired our dishwasher, patrolled the streets, and repaired phone wires. My father’s accountant was hispanic, as was his attorney.

 

I remember my childhood astonishment when I overheard comments about a local “mexican,” Henry B. Gonzalez, was became an influential national politician. Later, I learned that another “Chicano,” Henry Cisneros, had worked to transform the whole city for Hemisfair, refurbishing the San Antonio River Walk, which later became one of the world’s safest and most colorful international tourist draws. A multitude of Hispanic civic and political leaders followed in their footsteps. As an ignorant young girl, however, I found it all much too confusing. How could these apparently benevolent leaders possibly be drawn from that same lowly pool of apparent lowlifes which I had tragically learned to exclude from my own personal repertoire of “nice people”—or, perhaps, “human beings?”

 

The San Antonio of today is a multicultural treat, largely run by courteous, ambitious Latinos. All those I met during that painful year resembled, in their work ethic and attitude, our Attorney General Alberto Gonzales—genial, earnest, hard-working, well-intentioned, people of faith.

 

Welcome to the America of the future, and more power to it.

 

Immigrants break no law they ever had a chance to democratically vote upon. Immigrants are doing exactly what any of us would do for ourselves and for our families, were we faced with an impossible present and future—if only we could find the daring and the support necessary to pick up, move on, and start over.

 

No other country is spending billions to guard its borders from terrorists, although quite a few nations are presently scrambling to arm themselves against our American invasions. No expensive walls are being built to keep terrorists out of Canada, China, Norway, or Sweden? And why not? Each of these countries has a similarly long, porous border, like ours, but unlike the U.S.A., these countries have friendly, cooperative foreign policies—i.e., fewer enemies.

 

When our politicians decide to create fewer deadly enemies with unkind trade and foreign policies, and focus instead on offering generous, accepting policies which embrace the world’s problems as our own, we won’t waste so much money protecting our borders from terrorists. Maybe we’ll pour some of that money into a better life for ourselves and for the immigrants we need to help make this country great again.

 

When I turned off my radio, I said a prayer for all persistent immigrants, for their admirable struggle to make a better life, and for the America we will all work to build together. Because someday soon these adventurers will claim for themselves the same bright prize their audacious countrymen have claimed throughout our history, the grandest lottery ticket gamble of all, the chance to win U.S. citizenship.

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

Condoleezza Rice Says Global Harmony Is Not the Business of Government

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At a recent press conference in Great Britain, Condoleezza Rice stuttered uncharacteristically when she was asked about a possible joint commission (of England, Ireland, and Australia) to promote global harmony. Ms. Rice responded that global harmony was not the business of government, but rather, a matter of concern for private citizens.

 

I always thought that the primary business of any state department worth its salt in the twenty-first century was global harmony. Certainly a “secure, democratic, and prosperous world” as pledged by the current U.S. Department of State’s mission statement, implies global harmony. Surely the highly-specialized, expensive training of our immense diplomatic corps specifically prepares them for careers of building and maintaining strong, positive foreign relationships.

 

Considering the many conflicts that daily arise around the globe, promotion of global harmony ought to be someone’s job, someone who is well-staffed, well-budgeted, and high profile, like Rice. I cannot be the only taxpayer disappointed to find out that, despite all that money we spend on the Department of State, no one in government is currently in charge of pursuing global harmony.

 

Perhaps Rice thinks the State Department is in the nineteenth-century diplomatic business of exclusively looking out for only our own nation’s interests, a childishly narrow, anachronistic, and frankly impossible goal that it is time to put away. Unfortunately, Rice still seems determined to strategically split up the world into enemies and allies, and to go about flexing and flaunting America’s fast-waning military muscle to unkindly wheel and deal in patronage, espionage, economic dominance, and power struggles.

 

Which is too bad, since, as Albert Einstein once observed, “A country cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war.” With Rice and others in our current administration busy preparing for war, who is left to prepare for peace?

 

Rice’s tough-cop, saber-rattling approach to throwing around what little unsquandered moral weight we have left can never promote a peaceful, productive America. The only long-term diplomatic relationship that has ever worked successfully has been one established along the lines of the golden rule—in which all diplomats offer one another the kind of justice which they would wish to be offered, themselves. Unfortunately, although Rice is a smart woman who can surely see no advantage to staying stuck in the past, the golden rule is not in her current play- or style-book. We await her transformation.

 

Our current aggressive diplomatic approaches are grounded in old thinking—in fear, selfishness, and greed, which produce nothing but immensely costly blowback in the long term, and anything but peace and prosperity for American citizens. A golden-rule approach to millennial American politics and diplomacy would be far more effective, and far less costly in every sense.

 

Passing the bill currently in Congress establishing a cabinet-level Department of Peace (Senate Bill #1756) will do much to support all cabinet departments in rethinking their roles in terms of global harmony—which is very much the business of government, and of all taxpaying citizens—perhaps even our most important business.

 

 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Depends On If You’re Our Good Guys Or Their Bad Guys

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It’s called “terrorism” when they bomb people for political reasons, and “democracy” when we do.

 

They’re madmen when they blow themselves up with cheap explosives to achieve strategic goals, and we're patriots when we do the same thing with expensive long-range missiles.

 

They’re crazy because they kill women and children. We could never do that, ever. Unless it was really necessary, for a just cause, and our patriotic duty. And then, we’d feel really bad about it. They wouldn’t.

 

They’re dangerous monsters who must be disarmed and sanctioned when they protect their way of life from foreign invaders. We’re freedom fighters when we’re invading and occupying foreign lands, imposing our ways upon people accustomed to completely different traditions, and “controlling distribution” of their valuable resources.

 

They have crazy religious ideas about jihad and martyrdom, imagining God might approve their sacrifices. We, on the other hand, are pure-and-simple onward-Christian-soldier-crusaders, marching with God on our side and the cross of freedom going on before, whatever that means.

 

They are violent maniacs who reject foreigners threatening their families and the lands of their ancestors. We would never act so uncivilized if foreigners invaded our country. Would we.

 

We respect all ethnicities, traditions, and religions. Except the really weird ones with all the strange gods, traditions, practices, foods, languages, doctrines, clothing, rituals, laws, customs, and beliefs. Like theirs.

 

Their whacked-out culture, with husbands veiling wives and home-schooling daughters, is definitely messed-up. There’s nothing wrong, however, with our own culture’s rates of divorce, sexual and spousal abuse, abortion, teen pregnancy, prostitution, rape, pornography, incarceration, school violence, unwed-motherhood, alcoholism, and drug and nicotine addiction.

 

They’re nuts, killing their own people. We could never do that. Except for when we kill Rebels…. And Yankees…. And attack civil rights marchers…. And lynch suspicious Negroes…. And murder homosexuals…. And shoot at race and draft rioters and college protesters…. And knife rival gang members…. And terrorize labor union strikers…. And blow away schoolmates…. And abuse prisoners…. And wives…. And children…. And gun down and burn anti-government survivalists and fundamentalists…. And take the lives of convicted murderers…. And then there’s the Unabomber’s victims…. And Timothy McVeigh’s…. And Lizzie Borden’s…. And all the murderers and serial killers….

 

Nevertheless, our stirring history, beliefs, institutions, rights, freedoms, way of life, political traditions, economic system, and patriotic and religious customs are still well-worth killing and dying for. Theirs aren’t.

 

They ought to keep their people unarmed and passive, and never acquire nuclear weapons. We, on the other hand, have to have nuclear weapons, so we can be the world’s unelected policeman. As the world’s only superpower, we're obviously the most vulnerable country, so we have to arm ourselves like terminators, unilaterally start up pre-emptive wars, invade, occupy, shoot up foreign countrysides and cities and villages, interfere with sovereign nations’ internal and political affairs, drop nuclear bombs on civilian populations, disrupt livelihoods and lives, kill innocents, and stockpile enough armaments to kill all life on earth many times over.

 

Although their teensy little country may feel justifiably threatened by our historical aggressions, they certainly don’t need to have “the bomb.” That would be overkill, and dangerous for us, as well. We, on the other hand, need thousands of nuclear weapons, since we are an envied and feared international target. Only an immense arsenal of nuclear weapons can properly back up our huge armies, navies, and air forces, not to mention our defense budget, larger than those of all the nations of the world combined.

 

The lives of children are infinitely precious and of unlimited sacred value to us. Unless of course they’re someone else’s children. Or they happen to live in a poor country, or in a country at war with our country. We also believe fervently in family values, and supporting families. With, of course, the above exceptions.

 

Our enviable five-hundred-year-old culture certainly has nothing to learn from their primitive five-thousand-year-old one.

 

Our ways and traditions and institutions are unquestionably superior to any other country’s. Anyone could tell that, just by looking at our nation’s fabulous prosperity. It’s true we built our success upon genocide of the native Americans who were here first, and then upon the bloody backs of millions of imported African slaves. Not to mention exploitation of the richest swath of virgin land and untapped resources the world has ever known. But none of that really had anything to do with why we’re such a great country—it’s our perfect political and economic systems that are infallible. Everyone should be like us.

 

So please, try harder to see everything our way. Because, frankly, we’re bigger.

 

And don’t worry. Trust us. ‘Cause we’re the good guys.

 

Even though, just for the moment, I can’t quite remember why.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

A Generic, All-Purpose Letter, Ready To Send Out To Your Political Representatives

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Dear Sir (or Madam):

 

The America I see around me is no longer recognizable. Our political and governmental systems are unresponsive to the needs of U.S. citizens, and unrepresentative of their views. Government at all levels seems powerless to resolve present or future challenges. America is increasingly feared, despised, and distrusted around the world.

 

In hopes of clarifying and simplifying your job, I’m asking you to work and vote in the following ways, whenever possible:

 

Against secrecy;

 

Against greed;

 

Against polarization, whether between individuals, organizations, governments, or nations;

 

Against fear as expressed in anger, pain, hatred, war, violence, vengeance, despair, and cynicism;

 

Against blaming anyone, including yourself;

 

For acceptance, support, and respect for the quality of human life everywhere;

 

For social and economic justice for individuals and families;

 

For environmental stewardship;

 

For the strong promotion of positive values and healthy lifestyles and attitudes, especially via school programs and the public airwaves;

 

For easing the day-to-day burdens of working people;

 

For embracing the changes and technologies necessary to make our government once again responsive, representative, wise, and capable;

 

For generously alleviating suffering, in the present and future;

 

For treating every person in every nation as we would wish to be treated;

 

Please give special consideration, in each decision, whenever possible, to its impact upon all children and all small localities, everywhere.

 

Thank you very much for your well-intentioned and devoted service.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

A Concerned Citizen

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Media (of the People, by the People) for the People

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I just watched an old movie popular in the thirties—the William Powell/Myrna Loy version of Dashiel Hammett’s The Thin Man, which later became a television series starring Peter Lawford. My mom and dad often mentioned how entranced they once were by this movie and its follow-ons, how they idealized these suave young couples. They also often talked about Kate Hepburn and Bing Crosby in their respective versions of The Philadelphia Story and High Society.

 

Watching these old movies today, I am once again astonished at the power of the media to impact culture. Rightly or wrongly, these movies glamourized and legitimized—no, actually promoted—social choices considered quite extreme at the time (divorce, choosing a spouse without regard for family opinion, frequent at-home and social drinking of alcohol, associations with people from different classes and values systems, smoking….) 

 

They influenced many young moderns (my parents among them) to eagerly embrace their advocated lifestyles, for better or for worse. I know that my parents found the courage to take such counter-cultural steps from the illusory weight and seeming solidity of the airy fantasies presented in these and similar movies, although I also know that both of them had been well-inculcated from very early on with every reasonable argument against such decisions. Their children (me included) were further influenced by their defensive insistence on the reasonableness and superiority of their choices.

 

How much more are today’s young people influenced by their day-long forced feeding of heavily-marketed television (both programming and commercials,) music, books, games, magazines, movies, consumer goods, etc? The only thing that surprises me at all anymore is that we still recognize our children as “ours,” considering they live in a completely “other” world than ours, a brave new world of tomorrow which, as Kahlil Gibran said, “we cannot visit, not even in our dreams.”

 

All Americans profit when our children grow up in strong families to be good, responsible adults. And we all suffer—and pay—when our youth make poor choices. Nevertheless, we let our public airwaves run amok in their promotion of unhealthy attitudes and lifestyles, while we barely scratch the surface of their potential to promote wise choices.

 

On one sad level, Americans today are relegated to living in the land of the free-to-make-a-buck and the home of the brave-but-stupid, which is too bad, because I don’t remember voting for any such peculiarly modern-American mantra.

 

When we-the-people finally get around to taking our politics and government(s) back out of the hands of big money, I’m confident we’ll find excellent ways to tap into using all the public airwaves for the common good.

 

The Iranian movie industry, currently severely constrained by their reigning theocracy to produce only non-violent, non-sexual movies, has responded with a lovely array of internationally recognized award-winning values- and family-based films which are  poignant, gripping, and thought-provoking. Someday, a responsive and representative government of, by, and for the American people will surely find ways to preserve our most-cherished freedoms, while supporting visionary media output that promotes the great diversity of healthful and positive values, lifestyles, and choices.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Peacemakers Who (Really) Keep the Peace

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Dictionaries offer two definitions of “peacemaker”: someone who settles disputes and problems by negotiating and mediating, and a second kind of “Peacemaker”—a Colt single-action revolver popular during the late nineteenth century.

 

American voters keep bringin’ on the gunslinging version of peacemaker—belligerent, reactionary leaders who turn taxpayers’ pockets inside-out to fund their immense arsenals, endless wars, unwieldy spy bureaucracies, and sprawling armed forces, who make no one’s day–and untold enemies–with their cocky boy-cowboy approaches to diplomacy.

 

I want new leadership that will keep the peace, not disturb it.

 

Only visionary leaders can provide the understanding, acceptance, and appreciation necessary to unify the planet’s polarized cultures—Africans, South Americans, China, the Muslim world, and the West. Only idealistic leadership can inspire each of these cultures to achieve its own unique ideals, hopes, and dreams, while respecting and supporting the quality of human life everywhere. Only non-violent leadership can address the century’s most urgent problems—the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, greed, hunger, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, imprisonment, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, conflict, corruption, migration, war, terrorism, and violence.

 

Albert Einstein said, “”You can't solve a problem with the same mind-set that got you into the problem in the first place.”  Yet we keep trying to address 21st century problems with the same kind of 19th century peacekeeping that got us into trouble in the first place.

 

When our founders wrote the Constitution, they charged future leaders with serious peacemaking roles. And just exactly what does it mean to us, today, to “provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, establish justice, and insure domestic tranquility?”

 

American peacekeeping today is all about invading and conquering distant lands unlucky enough to have rich resources and strategic value; imposing international political and economic conditions advantageous to Americans; treating idealistic global cooperatives, movements, and legal bodies as convenient extensions of American hegemony; promoting justice primarily for white, wealthy, incorporated, and preferably male Americans; and insisting on America’s right to do whatever we want, to whomever, whenever, wherever.

 

We don’t need any more moral bankrobbers who stare down imagined enemies at the point of a gun. We need spiritual political leadership in the mould of Gandhi, Mandela, and King, peacemakers with faith in the power of love, and the moral courage necessary to bring the world together, who will establish a cabinet-level Department of Peace, work to keep our nation in harmony with all God’s children in every nation, and help secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves, our posterity, and all mankind.

 

Yippee-ki-yay, brother.

 

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

American Politics, Before the Next Terrorist Attack

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Our future safety and political freedoms rest upon whether Americans recognize sooner, rather than later, the terrifying truth that our traditional, well-intentioned and well-funded militaristic approaches to national defense and espionage have very limited preventative effects, and cannot keep us safe from the horrors of terrorism or global thermonuclear war during a century of instant communications and easily-accessible lethal weaponry.  Furthermore, such anachronistic, adversarial strategies actually provoke increasing threats to our country and our planet. Even as we squander more and more money, energy, and time, they advance the likelihood that our worst nightmares will become realities.

 

The next big terrorist attack on the United States will determine the direction of our political future. As 9/11 proved, confused and terrified Americans will support any leader who offers them reassurance, whether or not their proffered “plan” for safety is well-founded, tested, logical, reliable, understandable, open to public debate, cost-effective, democratic, credible, or even, in existence.

 

Rubber-stamping endless homeland defense expenditures primarily insures a politically-necessary illusion of security, since our “homeland” is clearly indefensible. Sending our grandchildren off to fight in distant, unwinnable pre-emptive invasions and occupations is morally unconscionable and fiscally reckless. Bankrolling unwieldy spy bureaucracies undermines the very freedoms such actions are meant to save. Focusing media attention on the weaknesses of our perceived enemies, and rattling our sabers self-righteously in their direction only heightens dangerous tensions. Pursuing “big-winner-takes-all” trade tactics lines a few greedy pockets and hurts everyone else. None of these strategies will keep us safe, and none can solve the real problems of the 21st century.

 

What we can learn, before nuclear horror humbles us all beyond recognition, is that there is no exclusive way to provide safety for any single nation or group of nations, no way to guarantee peace for only U.S. citizens and their allies. There are no constructive pathways to safety that can be selfishly withheld from some, or from any, on this unpredictable, unmicromanageable globe.

 

Only a universally inclusive path of international cooperation and non-violence can offer any long-term safety to Americans and our fellow-earthlings. Before the next terrorist attack, we must embrace the ancient wisdom inherent in all religions, that violence engenders only more violence, that war creates new problems without solving old ones, and that hatred begets more hate. Citizens of all nations will inevitably suffer tragic injustices during this violent century. We need not, however, add to their sum.

 

People everywhere want to live their lives in liberty, and to pursue their individual and collective dreams uninterrupted by violence. The only path to the very peace we all want for ourselves and our friends and families, is a path we can only walk together, along with everyone else. If we want peace and safety, we must teach it, live it, and offer it to all, just as if we lived in a world of next-door-neighbors. Which we do.

 

The night before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It’s nonviolence—or nonexistence.”

 

The world can learn peaceful ways without facing the devastation of nuclear annihilation. We can open our minds and hearts now to the practical promise of non-violence, before greater tragedies befall our world. Non-violence has come of age; it is an idea whose time has finally come.

 

The cancer of violence is insidiously attacking, organ by organ, the body of humanity, destroying the nature and quality of human life on our small planet. Only when we learn to apply non-violent solutions to this century’s most urgent problems—energy sufficiency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addictions, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and violence itself—can we restore health and safety to the embattled body of mankind and to our mother earth.

 

Which path to safety will we choose during our next elections? A violent, power-based one? Or the path of non-violence, Jesus’ path, Gandhi’s path, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s path, the gentle path of all those around the world who are now peacefully resisting tyrants? Do we want a path to a police state or a peace state?

 

In the past, we elected many representatives of the old politics of fear and aggression. During our next election, we can turn away from demagogues who rule our emotions with the fear of fear itself, turning instead to new, moral leadership which shows us peaceful pathways to greater global safety.

 

Nothing matters more than that our new leaders embrace the universal, timeless, and essential values of faith, hope, and love….

 

Because:

 

Only faithful leaders trust in God’s redemptive love for every one of earth’s children, and in international dialogue and peaceful cooperative efforts, disavowing the politics of exclusion, polarization, and dehumanization;

 

Only hopeful leaders join with like-minded light-bearers of other nations, stand with them, work with them, and lift all nations and peoples up, leaving no one behind;

 

Only loving leaders forgive, and let the past–and past blame–go, accepting, supporting, and respecting human life everywhere.

 

Led with faith, hope, and love, Americans can work with the whole global community to make the world a safer, more inclusive place for all. We can swing open, to greater cooperation and mutual support, the closed doors of secretive agencies. We can build new peace initiatives within our dedicated, patriotic Defense Department. We can develop a volunteer force of unarmed citizens to observe violent conflicts at home and abroad. We can establish a U.S. Peace Academy, equivalent in honor, distinction, and service to our proud military academies. We can found a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to influence policy, conflict resolution, and decision-making at the highest levels, as well as in our home towns and school curricula. We can apply cutting-edge peace research to the transformation of our combative diplomatic, justice, welfare, and education systems.

 

We don’t have to keep on contributing to an ever-more-insane world. We can decide now to work together to build a different one, where acceptance, respect, and support for human life everywhere is the new highest value, an inclusive world where Americans reach out in friendship and forgiveness to former enemies, and where all live together in safety and peace in a shared global home.

 

Wherever non-violent methods have been applied to political, personal, global, and local conflicts, they have proved to be successful, cost-effective approaches which defuse tensions, resolve conflicts, and heal past grievances. Non-violence, the best approach to a sound national defense program, offers us all the promise of a more effective, values-based, long-term path to a safer future.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net