Waging Peace
By Charlie Keil
Contradictions (a short introduction to "Waging
Peace")
I am adding this introduction to "Waging Peace" plus a "free
copyright" notice to encourage its circulation, and sending it out again
because it seems more obvious each day that time may be running out. IF
the next rounds of terrorism here hit a few nuclear power stations and
chernobylize big portions of east and west coasts, IF more bacteria and
different kinds of bacteria are released, etc. etc. etc. and IF the West keeps
acting out the scenarios of retaliation scripted by terrorists, then this
country will not have the resources to help solve the worldıs problems even if
it should eventually summon up the common sense, common decency, and the
willingness to do so.
Diction = what is being said. Contra = against. We
need to counter what is being said about the "war" on terrorism and
challenge the assumptions behind this diction.
The old Marxist sense of the word "contradiction" must be remembered
too; at certain points in time the dialectics, the oppostional forces, become so
glaring and obvious that people will act in order to change the world system
before it kills them.
You know it is time to "look at the contradictions" and to speak out
against what is being proposed as a solution in the centers of power when:
the rich are obscenely rich and the poor are desperately poor all over the
world;
world militarism (800 billion annual budget) is sucking up diminishing resources
and destroying the biosphere and this "consciousness" experiment we
call humanity;
40,000 children die each day of starvation and preventable diseases;
many fields needed for food production are filled with landmines;
topsoil is flowing down all the rivers of the planet;
ozone layer, global warming, pollution levels disappear as issues because we are
"at war" and now we really just donıt have time for these deeper
underlying problems;
deadly bacteria sent by Bush Sr. from Rockville, Maryland to Iraq in the 1980s
may be returning to Washington D.C. to threaten Bush Jr. and the rest of us;
your home and backyard could be irradiated by the next terrorist attack.
This list could be much, much longer.
There is another long list, of cleansings or "administrative
massacres" about to happen in Europe, Asia, Africa: against the Roma in any
one or more of half a dozen east European and Balkan countries; against the
Chinese or the next minority in Indonesia; against the Pagans and Christians of
southern Sudan for the tenth or fifteenth time; as I write, the news reports
100s killed in Benue State Nigeria where we lived for two years again, the
list of ongoing and potential scapegoats is long and getting longer. I donıt
believe that the UN or the regional organizations are ready at this moment
either to prevent these events within states or to attempt an intervention once
they get started. Looking back, the Saddam Hussein regime should have been
sanctioned and arrested after the gassing of Kurdish villages in 1988. Intervention
was 8 years late in Greater Serbia. No one intervened in Rwanda. The
illegal and ineffective missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan by the Clinton
administration in response to embassy bombings in East Africa should have told
us that the era of "war" with inappropriate technology was over.
We donıt know how to stop cleansing or terrorism, twin evils that
threaten to plunge all of us into chaos.
How can we strengthen world law, world court and establish regional and world
police forces quickly enough to cope with:
1) emerging fascism/cleansing/genocidal regimes on the one hand and 2) emerging
terrorist cells and networks on the other?
How can we peacefully reduce the global economy to sustainable levels?
How can we achieve a global moratorium on "bioengineering" broadly
defined?
How can we mobilize internationally for "waging peace"?
Please circulate this message and "Waging Peace"
internationally because I donıt think the initiatives for this necessary
transformation are going to come from the USA any time soon, or soon enough.
Please draft your own lists of "Contradictions" and
proposals for "Waging Peace" and circulate them. Maybe this web of
communication was established just in time to make the necessary shift from
militarism and business as usual to mindfulness.
Copyright Charles Keil Oct. 2001
You may freely post, reproduce, publish or
forward this essay as long as you do so in its entirety, including this
copyright notice. If you edit this essay or quote from it, please
indicate clearly that you did so.
Waging Peace
Iım all for enduring freedoms here and worldwide.
Iım for finite human justice, "patient justice" (Bush) as a
path toward peace, and Gaiaıs Infinite Justice too. I want terrorists, war
criminals, mass murderers of all sorts turned over to a world court for
trials and punishment. Sometimes I can think Iım on the same page with
key slogans in a Bush speech and the shifts in overall administration rhetoric
often seem to be seeking a better direction, a proper multilateral response, an
alliance that will work. I would really like to feel unified with my
fellow Americans and with world citizens who are seeking justice, freedom,
freedom from fear, peace, democracy, all the good goals.
But itıs called "Americaıs New War"in the
corporate sponsored media campaign. "War"of some kind is just assumed
to be the obvious response to this terrorism. It is not.
None of the possibly good reasons for air strikes or sending in an army or
police force to stop cleansing/genocide, to stop fascist aggression can be
applied here. And, perhaps more important, none of the bad or greedy
reasons for war apply either. This time we can NOT protect our oil supplies in
the Middle East by going to war. This time we can NOT revive our economy and
world capitalism by going to war. This time we can NOT win or control "the
enemy," claim enemy turf or destroy the enemyıs capacity for violence with
conventional or unconventional warfare. They are not located in any one place.
They are few and far between. Many small needles in many very big
haystacks. What if we got super lucky and hit Sammy B. Laden and his entire gang
with the very first bomb dropped somewhere? Instant Martyrs inspiring
generations of terrorists. His tapes will be dubbed and distributed widely.
Even if the very first miraculous mission by special forces brought a
bunch of terrorists back alive in some heliocopters for a fair trial? We
still could not possibly win a war against terrorism.
The suicidal and non-suicidal maniacs are spread around. Could be anywhere. Are
everywhere. They donıt need orders or a plan from a center anywhere. They need
$3 box cutters. They donıt need to know how to take off or land. They need $100
to bribe the guy who gives licenses to carry hazardous materials in a truck.
Under present circumstances any terrorists caught or rounded up can easily
be replaced. And with a war of any kind, many more terrorists are likely
to be produced. And not only from a few dozen countries in the Muslim
world. It only takes two (Tim M. and his friend), or a few pals, or even just
one person home alone (Ted K.), a tiny splinter group from a Chinese cult or a
Japanese clique, a few smart skinheads in Dresden or Budapest, an angry little
cell or faction within any one of almost 200 nationalist states or within any of
the over 1000 ethnic groups oppressed within those nationalist states angry
Kurds, angry Tutsi, angry East Timorese, angry Basques, angry any one
person anywhere.
Any one person on the planet who has seen so much suffering and injustice that
those delicate threads of compassion that bind us all to each other have
snapped, can devise a scheme for bringing down a building or destroying a
communications center or poisoning a water supply or turning an area the size of
Pennsylvania into a nuclear desert or spreading a bacteria that can destroy 20%
of humanity, or 90% of humanity, or 100% of humanity. Why would someone
who is committing suicide care whether he is taking 6000 people, 6 million
people or 6 billion people with him? Ecology. Eco- means home. We
are now living in one home and if one of us goes crazy and/or gets angry and/or
has the wrong interpretation of a holy book, it can hurt us all.
Once you put yourself to sleep counting angries jumping over security fences,
then you can wake up and start counting crazies. And when you have
finished with angry man scenarios, and crazy man scenarios, think of the angry
and crazy women who can bring down half the sky more easily than men -- would a
cute, blond farmgirl-looking pilot have any trouble renting a crop duster for
her anthrax tomorrow? Plus religious fanatics. And donıt forget
accidents, the random perversity of animate and inanimate objects.
War wonıt work any more at all and terrorism will work better and better with
every passing day, because of one very simple fact: increasing complexity.
Let me repeat it a few times for emphasis, because it is a fact that doesnıt
seem to be registering quickly enough with the Overcentralized Intelligence
Agency and our leaders.
War wonıt work any more at all, and terrorism will work better and better with
every passing day, because of one very simple fact: increasing complexity.
War wonıt work any more at all, and terrorism will work better and better with
every passing day, because of one very simple fact: increasing complexity.
The system has become too complex, too intertwined, too vulnerable in over a
million ways. You, whoever you are reading this, have already imagined in
your head at least 2 or 3 ways in which one person acting alone, or just a few
people acting together, could produce a more horrible day for the USA than what
happened on Sept. 11.
Once the global economy, global communications, global resource depletions,
global invention of new chemicals, global productions of new bacteria, new
viruses, new prions, new technologies for spreading everything to everyone
(make that 2 simple facts, increasing complexity and lots more
bioengineered bad stuff) have gotten to the stage we reached on Sept. 11, all
the big tech war machinery is worse than useless. Box cutters or bare
hands or a single piece of disinformation or misinformation, or a wandering
gene, or a nasty bacterium, can do amazing damage as the impact ripples through
the complex intertwined system (ever more filled with bioengineered bad stuff).
All the B1, B2, B3 bombers and aircraft carriers in the world canıt stop
it. Nor can ground troops.
What can we do? We can declare peace anytime. Enact peace. Be
peace. Each of us. Now. And as we transform ourselves we transform the military
industrial oil based economy into a peacetime sustainable economy. Some
will do this out of idealism or religious obligation or from spiritual
awakening. Others will do this out of pragmatism and realpolitik.
Machiavellian motivation to seize whatever power remains might easily
motivate peace work at this time. Honest patriotism and just wanting to do
something could bring millions of Americans to a peace and justice plan of
action. Because war just wonıt work anymore. Too big, too expensive, too
cumbersome, too much "collateral damage," too much environmental
devastation, and too much trauma passed down the generations with bad
physical and mental health effects on grandchildren who might become terrorists
50 years from now.
War wonıt work against terrorism. Peace will.
Waging peace will create jobs. Waging peace will pump up the
economy. Waging peace will bring European and Japanese investors back to
America. Waging peace will make friends and trading partners for America
throughout the globe. Waging peace will put capital to work in productive, life
affirming, sustainable ways that solve the major problems of our times. Waging
war in this new era does the opposite of all this. Loss of jobs. Loss of
overseas investors. Loss of capital. Loss of trading possibilities. Rippling
losses in all directions. We can do comprehensive peace work in place of a
stupid war that can only be a loss-loss-loss-loss situation.
Waging peace will stop terrorism the only way it can be stopped, by giving
everyone a minimum but absolutely necessary faith in the way things work: mass
murderers will be brought to justice, the biggest thieves will be caught,
justice will be witnessed in the light of public space and people will be able
to "keep the faith" just enough to not want to commit suicide while
taking a lot of people with them. Probably the rich will still be rich,
the poor will still be poor and always with us, the size of middle classes will
continue to fluctuate in a sustainable peace time global economy. But we
canıt afford obscene wealth and conspicuous consumption any more because it
incites terrorism. And we canıt afford grinding poverty and famines any
more because it incites terrorism.
No gaurantees here. But we can try to heal the angries,
soothe the crazies, defuse fanaticism, pray that no serious accidents will
happen as the already released pollutants combine in new ways, as the already
released radiation speeds up mutation, as the already bioengineered creatures
make their way thru the environment and start shaping an evolutionary process
that used to be Gaiaıs alone.
We need about $225-250 billion a year to give the world exactly what it wants
(see below), to actually save the world, to end terrorism, to move into
sustainable economics and a balanced ecology, to have the broad parameters for
peace and justice in place.
Selling off half of GEıs stock value (500 Billion) could pay for it the first
year.
Coca Cola is capitalized at around 110 to 130 Billion. Pepsi is worth 60
Billion. Cash in the sugar water kings to pay for the second year? Things
could go much better.
Or a billionaires club of 50 of the worldıs richest individuals could
contribute 200 billion each year and they would all still be billionaires next
year.
Or we could ask each country with a big military budget to give the world a
third of their military spending. They would still have 550 billion to
waste on useless war machinery and armies that no longer have any place to go.
One way or another, I know we can find the money.
We have to find it all because waging peace MUST be comprehensive on all
fronts. If we leave one world problem unsolved, that will cause serious
terrorism eventually.
A few years ago (1997) the World Game Institute identified 18 fronts and
proposed 18 detailed strategies, putting an annual price tag on each to
achieve "What the World Wants." Go to their page or website from here
for the more detailed strategies. Do the math. Write your congressperson.
Itıs a finite and doable list and I think every country in the United
Nations would be happy to help; theyıd be embarrassed not to.
The contradictions, the laws of supply and demand, the
invisible hand of the market, the evening news, a very vivid, practical and
completely non-utopian vision of how happy people would be reforesting, saving
topsoil, feeding all the children it all tells me the same thing:
everything points toward comprehensive peace-making now, or maybe never.
Hereıs a short list of
problems and very approximate costs to solve them as of 1997:
1 Eliminate Starvation and Malnourishment 19
Billion per year for ten years
2A Provide Health Care for All 15
Billion per year for ten years
2B Provide Special Child Health Care
2C Iodine Deficiency Program
2D AIDS Prevention and Control Program
3 Eliminate Inadequate Housing and Homelessness 21
Billion per year for ten years
4 Provide Clean and Abundant Water 10 Billion per
year for ten years
5 Eliminate Illiteracy 5 Billion a year for ten
years
6 Increase Energy Efficiency 33 Billion per year
for ten years
7 Increase Renewable Energy 17 Billion per
year for ten years
8 Debt Management 30 Billion per year
for ten years
9 Stabilize Population 11 Billion per
year for ten years
10 Preserving Cropland 24 Billion per year for
ten years
11 Reversing Deforestation 7 Billion per year
for ten years
12 Reverse Ozone Depletion 5 Billion per year
for twenty years
13 Stop Acid Rain 8 Billion per year for ten
years
14 Reverse Global Warming 8 Billion per
year for twenty years
15 Removal of Landmines 2 Billion per year for
ten years
16 Refugee Relief 5 Billion per year for ten
years
17 Eliminating Nuclear Weapons 7 Billion a year
for 10 years
18 Building Democracy 2 Billion a year for
ten years
See World Game Institute pages [ http://www.worldgame.org/wwwproject ]
for the specific strategies and costs.
Note: You could do 15 or 18 for less than it
costs to build one B-2 bomber or for less than one half of what the US spends on
perfume each year or for 0.025 % of the worldıs annual military expenditures.
Are we serious about Enduring Freedom and "patient justice" or not?
"Waging Peace" can also be downloaded from www.128path.org
--
C. Keil
22 Wells Hill Rd. Lakeville, Conn. 06039
Phone: 860-435-8120
Info about MUSE, Inc. see http://www.musekids.org
For12/8 Path brass bands see http://www.128path.org