Posts Tagged ‘build’

Don’t Attack Iran! – World

Sunday, March 25th, 2012

The beautiful ‘Israel Loves Iran’ campaign is reaching new heights, nearing close to 40,000 likes on their Facebook page, and raising almost $20,000 since its inception just two weeks ago. Remarkable!

Meanwhile, across the UK, members of the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ organized a day of action to speak out against war with the Persian nation. More great stuff!

Demonstrations like these are just awesome to see. Massive outpourings of anti-war sentiments are a key ingredient for eliminating earth’s major armed conflicts. The more they happen, the sooner we can build a lasting peace on earth.

Just picture huge rallies, numbering in the millions, across Israel and America, pressuring their governments to avoid war at all costs. And then imagine if Iranians were doing the same thing, at the same time. Governments on both sides would have no choice but to take notice.

This is precisely why humankind is on the verge of realizing world peace. The Internet is sparking a great awakening, exposing our common humanity and breaking down the fear and ignorance so integral for organizing wars.

A few more years, and our world will be so interconnected, so united, that pro-war propaganda and rhetoric will be useless in the face of the global community bonds we have formed.

Then, it will be just a matter of systematically dismantling the institutions of war, and reallocating those precious resources to where they should have been all along: constructively making the world a better place.

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Barriers to Peace

Monday, March 19th, 2012

(Warning! Graphic video.)

“Doc, save his life.” chuckled an American soldier, standing over the dead and dying bodies of (reportedly) Iraqi militants, “Got a band-aid?” Disgusting. Not a single trace of honor in their behavior, which, incidentally, is a clear violation of the Geneva convention.

Equally repugnant are the related comments posted on the video’s right-wing site Liveleak: “awesome…die terrorist” “i would rather see a bus full… still nice do.” “Go to your Allah, rat bastards.” Senseless, hate-filled vitriol. (more…)

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Shameful Conditions in First World Canada

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

(‘So a baby seal walks into a bar…‘)

Over a month ago in northern Ontario, Chief Shawn-A-in-chut Atleo from Attawapiskat First Nation declared a State of Emergency. Living conditions had consistently declined for two decades, placing the 2000-member community on the brink of a “humanitarian disaster.”

The response from the Government of Canada has been slow, leaving the ball to be picked up by a group that should be out helping the rest of the world – the Red Cross. Yet Ottawa’s sluggish response stems less from their lack of belief about the dire conditions, and more from the pressing fear of what might happen should other First Nations expose their own appalling conditions

What an embarrassment it would be for Canada! On top of being seal-clubbing, cancer-spreading, earth-rapists, we’ll also bear the international humiliation of a neglected indigenous population. Dreadful.

On a related note, in the third world, out of the countless millions living on the brink of starvation, tens of thousands of humans die every single day. So, not to trivialize the plight of Canada’s poorest people, but labeling what we see in Canada as ‘Third World Conditions’ does a disservice to the world’s truly poorest, who must endure the absolute worst that modern life has to offer.

And now that I’ve gone off on a tangent, I may as well end up on a soapbox.

Canada has been spending over $8 Billion a year for programs and policies for aboriginal peoples, which is clearly proving inadequate. Not that more money is the only solution. Surely the whole branch of government could use a shake-up and maybe trim off the life-sucking bloated bureaucracy.

But compare that spending to the nearly $20 Billion Canada invested to bomb liberate the poor, hapless people of Afghanistan, or the $26 Million in Canadian taxpayer funds used for the humanitarian mission to execute Gaddafi, and one wonders where Canada’s priorities should lie.

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for making the world a better place, and the more diverse our strategy the better. But if the goal is to help humans live better lives, we might find our efforts better placed in areas where armies aren’t a necessary part of the plan.

Plus, until we Canadians get our shit together back home, we really have no business intervening militarily in the affairs of other nations.

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Defense Industry is Decade’s Biggest Scam – Greenwald

Monday, August 29th, 2011

Outspoken author Glenn Greenwald put out a provocative piece today called The Decade’s Greatest Scam which outlines the absurdity of spending billions of dollars to fight terrorism – a threat that kills the same number of people who die drowning in a bathtub each year.

Greenwald says these industries are exploiting the people’s irrational fear as a for-profit business:

Exaggerating, manipulating and exploiting the Terrorist threat for profit and power has been the biggest scam of the decade; only Wall Street’s ability to make the Government prop it up and profit from the crisis it created at the expense of everyone else can compete for that title.

Nothing has altered the mindset of the American citizenry more than a decade’s worth of fear-mongering. So compelling is fear-based propaganda, so beholden are our government institutions to these private Security State factions, and so unaccountable is the power bestowed by these programs, that even a full decade after the only Terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, its growth continues more or less unabated.

The author also points out how most of these new security measures will ultimately be used not for protection against terrorism, but rather, as tools used to subdue uprisings and keep the people down:

The Security State has little to do with addressing ostensible Terrorist threats, it has much to do with targeting perceived domestic and political threats, especially threats brought about by social unrest from austerity and the growing wealth gap.

The prime aim of the growing Surveillance State is to impose domestic order, preserve prevailing economic prerogatives and stifle dissent and anticipated unrest.

The Western World has been fighting the war on terror for ten years, costing tremendous amounts of blood and treasure, not to mention liberty and freedom.

And what has been the result? Death and chaos.

If we really want more security in our world, maybe it’s time to try something else besides wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on the tools of war.

How about investing some of these funds into programs that alleviate poverty and strengthen communities? Then we’ll see which method works better to stabilize societies, resolve conflicts and build a peaceful planet.

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Canada Trying to Trim Military Fat

Saturday, August 20th, 2011

With major trading partners teetering on the brink of economic collapse, Canadians have been looking for ways to tighten belts. A great place to find unnecessary expenditures is with the military, since the only wars we’ve been fighting lately are the ones we make ourselves.

A new report outlines ways to do just that – cut 5-10%, or over a billion dollars, from our bloated defense budget. The report takes aim at the bureaucracy, opting to fire civilian staff and merge departments without compromising front-line integrity.

Still, these recommendations are going to be a hard sell, as it will require shaking up the military establishment. Without significant political pressure, these proposed cuts could easily be ignored.

This is where the Canadian public comes in. Already sick of the Afghan war, it’s time for Canadians to really make some noise and let our political leaders know we don’t want or need politically organized armed conflict anymore.

Sure, one billion in slashed spending is a great start, but we want the cuts to go far deeper. There are better ways to invest our precious treasure to improve the world.

These billions we blow on death and destruction could instead be used for building wells, spreading solar cookers, or feeding and schooling children. Rather than focusing on killing off the “bad guys”, we could be helping to strengthen the world’s communities, making it so they are able to handle their own affairs.

It’s time we moved beyond our roles as peace-keepers to become peace-builders, attacking the root causes of conflict instead of just the symptoms.

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India & Pakistan: Burying the Hatchet

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Foreign ministers from India and Pakistan hailed a “new era” in ties between the two neighbors, taking a step forward in reducing tension in the one of the world’s most dangerous regions.

Peace talks were surprisingly positive, but analysts cautioned too much hope until there was progress on resolving the status of disputed territory and other contentious issues.

Still, when a pair of nuclear-armed rivals begin the peace process, it is a great day for the world!

Here’s to happy and fruitful peace building!

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Peacewarriors FTW (for the World!)

Saturday, January 1st, 2011

Gandhi, Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, John Lennon: just a few of the prominent personalities that come to mind when dealing with the promotion of peace.

But anyone can be a peacewarrior, even you! Within every single one of us resides the power to change the world. It is just a matter of choosing to take action, getting involved, and adding your voice to the movement.

Peacewarriors are regular people who believe that staying silent in the face of injustice is a form of consent. This is why they actively struggle against oppression, using whatever non-violent means available to help create a more just society.

Building peace can be hard sometimes because it often means going against the grain. For too long we’ve had institutionalized violence in our world, and far too many minds have been indoctrinated with the false belief that war is inevitable.

This is where the ‘warrior’ aspect of building peace comes in: standing strong against the fears and hatred and ideologies which are preventing us from moving forward into a better world.

Most people want a world with more peace and love, but they fear being persecuted or ridiculed for saying so. They say a single boo will drown out a dozen cheers, and the same holds true when building peace. Too often the optimistic dreams of many can be deflated by a single pessimist spewing negative nonsense.

It is up to the brave Peacewarriors to take the lead and pave the path to peace.  Courage is contagious, and so too is hope.

Inspiring in others a belief in the possibility of peace is perhaps the greatest contribution any of us can make to the peace movement. When enough people on earth recognize the real potentials for peace, we will be in a position to actually make it happen.

Fortunately, today’s peacebuilders have an unprecedented arsenal at their disposal. For one, the Internet, with its instant messaging and social networking, gives us great powers to coordinate and mobilize efforts from around the world. Peacewarriors, unite!

On top of this, we now have more channels than ever to spread pertinent information. Facts like how the world is the most peaceful it has ever been in modern history, or how extreme poverty is at an all time low, give us some great reasons to be optimistic.

As well, sharing knowledge about the trillion dollar war-machine known as the Military Industrial Complex will do wonders to demystify wars and help end institutionalized armed conflicts.

We’ve never been closer to world peace than we are right now, meaning there has never been a more crucial time to be a peacewarrior. So join the movement!

You will be helping to create world peace – something humankind has yet to accomplish. At the end of the day, what could possibly be a greater or more noble goal than this?

and inspiring others to follow suit.

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