Gene's Blog

Peace on Earth

Well, now, that isn’t exactly a topic for a brief conversation is it? Unless it is. :^)

I was thinking about the divisions between us, not just country to country, but closer, within countries even. The overwhelming victory by Vladimir Putin in Russia’s recent presidential election, one in which he speculated before the vote for THIS 6 year term, that he might just run again in 2018. Sounds like a return to the days of the cold war doesn’t it? Except in the reaction of the Russian people, with the notable absence of those Russian nationals with green cards who make their living here, live here in the United States and are, for the most part, fabulously wealthy. Haven’t heard a peep from them about how they feel about the “democratic reforms” underway in their homeland. And I have noticed they’ve not yet yielded their green cards and moved home. Not that I understand that process to begin with, I mean. Poor people the world over want very much to come to this country, still. With our economic woes and the sharp divisions in our own political arena, people still want to come here. I was thinking about why that is.

And I’ll talk about that in a minute, once I finish off a pet peeve of mine. I do not understand how it is that elite athletes can just show up here and get green cards, make monstrous salaries, live with the one percent, while people from impoverished nations wait in camps, if they are lucky, for a chance to win the lottery and make it to our shores. Someone like Maria Sharapova, for instance, she calls herself a Florida girl, lives there, travels the world for her sport, came here at 8 and has been here ever since. How did she and her father qualify? Her budding talent got her into the exclusive Nick Bolliteri tennis academy, but how and why did she jump to the front of the waiting line. Many other examples of this, I am sorry to say, what I view as biased immigration policy exist. She got enormously wealthy here, is one of, if not the highest paid female athlete in the world – I don’t know how well her fashion lines sell in her homeland but they do well in the rest of the world. But she plays as a Russian, IS a Russian, plays Fed Cup for Russia and I imagine will return home one day when her career ends – which I am afraid will be sooner rather than later as she seems to have topped out at least in the tennis world and others with more versatile games are moving past her. But why did she get in and those children starving in camps around the world not? Okay rant over.

Lets go back to peace on earth. Religious traditions, Christian at least, speak of this often, it is a staple of Sunday morning sermons, hymns and political rhetoric. So why is it is so darn hard to actually achieve? We manage it here, at least we don’t have armed conflict in this country, as of yet. Nor do I expect it – soon. But every nation that has had as large a gap between the wealthiest and the poorest as we do has collapsed from within. We will too if we do not find ways to overcome that inherent deficiency in our current economic system. Selflessness would be one way – CWG says that a true civilization is one in which no one will have that which comes at the expense of another. Anyone think we are close to that? No, me either.

The Arab spring of 2011 gave me hope, and still does, but the cartoon in my previous post is also still the norm in our political discourse as we ramp up to the elections this fall. We draw these lines in the sand all over the world. Sometimes we draw them with troops on each side, sometimes with ideas, sometimes with troops on one side and ideas on the other, sometimes with ideas on each side. What has made America what it is still, a beacon of freedom, has eroded over the past 30 years (that is the reason for my caveat in the previous paragraph) to the point where we try to demonize those with ideas that differ from our own. It is no longer okay for you to believe what you choose and me to do the same. We have moved over the past thirty years to a place where our 18th and 19th and 20th century missionaries, though they had good intentions (isn’t it said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?) led us. It isn’t enough to believe what you believe, it is also necessary to convert those who believe something else. This is also at the heart of extremist elements in the peaceful religion of Islam. Our electioneering this year has just brought us the most hateful rhetoric of all. The unleashing of hidden money into Super PAC’s has degraded the public discourse immensely. It isn’t enough to have better ideas any more, you must know also have the “right” religious take on life. Who defines that take depends on who is talking.

What made this country great, and the retiring Olympia Snowe is a perfect example, was the ability to look into the long term best interest of the country, not demonize the other party, but reach across the aisle and find common ground. The essence of compromise is that no one wins and everyone does. Everyone gets something, no one gets everything. That isn’t how things work in our political OR economic environments any more. And that is at the heart of why peace on earth is so hard to find. We can’t even find it in Washington or New York because compromise has become a dirty word. A sign of loss, not victory. That denigration of the idea of compromise is at the heart of our inability to find common ground and STAND TOGETHER on it.

The answer? Is so simple. And it is universal. It could happen overnight. All that is required is that we choose again. That we, all of us, determine that the path we are on is the path to ruin. That we accept the idea that every human being has certain inalienable rights – is any of this sounding familiar yet? That we stop drawing lines in the sand. That we accept the basic premise that every person has the right to believe whatsoever they choose without interference from anyone so long as their exercise of that belief does not infringe upon the rights of another. We may have to make a compromise to achieve this. We may have to restrict the definition of another to those already born. I understand this is difficult for many. And I don’t dispute their right to feel as they do AND act on those beliefs, what I do dispute is their right to impose their definition on anyone but themselves. I don’t want to lose this in a debate on abortion – all I will say about that is, if you don’t want one, don’t have one. But give everyone else the same freedom of choice. That does not lessen you. It may lessen how you see another, but it does not lessen you. What does is this insatiable need to make everyone else behave as you think they should. We have to give that up.

No interference in other countries internal affairs except where the world community determines those internal affairs to be a threat to human decency, freedom and neighboring countries if not the world. Then a consensus of the world community may require that those internal affairs not involved genocide. I don’t think that an extreme position. I don’t think even arms dealers like Russia should. Find another way to make a living, if the way you make your living involves repressing or killing people with whom you have no legitimate grievance, people who did not physically attack you, people who simply believe something other than what you do.

Treat all people, at all times, as they would have you treat them. The Platinum Rule this is called and it requires no one be killed. Ever. And there’s our answer to peace on earth. Love each other as I have loved you Christian tradition says. Make that the slogan of this world, versions of it are present in every culture, and we have taken a giant step towards becoming a civilization enjoying the fruits of our labor, taking care of the sick and the infirm, loving each other as family, because we ARE. Hating no one, countenancing no hostile acts toward anyone by anyone, government or individual. And, above all, enjoying the freedom to make decisions about what to believe and how to exercise that belief in ways that do not infringe on anyone else’s freedom to do exactly the same thing. Be yourself and let everyone else have that same freedom. Peace on Earth. It IS that simple. We simply have to choose again, step away from our past, learn from it and move forward in freedom and love for all people as our guiding principle. We CAN do this. I hope we will. Soon.

If today brings even one choice your way,
Choose to be a Bringer of the Light :^) gene