Peace Dream: Building A Constituency For World Peace

By Casey Butler

"Imagine..." -John Lennon

11/12/07 "ICH" -- -- We are America, the City on the Hill: An enlightened land that hosts an enlightened and educated generation. The year is 2007. We have world history at our fingertips - the successes and failures of the entire human race are open to our view. No generation before us has had so much historical and scientific information available to it.

The overwhelming evidence provided through the history of humanity on planet Earth tells us that World Peace is not in the interest of any human government, no matter what it is called, nor is World Peace in the interest of any known organized religion condoned and supported by any human government, no matter what that religion is called.

Recent events testify against the intentions of our own government and the organized religions practiced under it's tax umbrella. In the current conflict scenario known as "The War On Terror", the duly elected United States Government has shown no interest in exempting itself from the harsh judgment of human history. Having rejected the tenets of international law in favor of unilateral gunslinging, history's judgement of the USA will be the same as other outlaw states and empires that have preceded us. Historical comparisons with previous failed governments abound.

Ours is a system of government founded upon the highest of evolved human ideals of justice, liberty, reason, and global human equality. They are ideals compiled and instituted by our founders, ideas evolved through millinea of suffering around the world.

However, since its founding, ours is also a system which we, the people, have evolved our way.

Over the last 231 years, through hard times and prosperity, the last 60 years as a nuclear superpower, we the people have "democratically" re-designed and modified our system to be a government dedicated to the efficient and ruthless advancement of our own interests by threat of force. These interests at which we have become so adept in advancing are best summarized as the interests of acquiring and protecting wealth of embarrassingly disgusting proportions when viewed in the face of the global poverty and suffering that surrounds us.

We, the American People, every single one of us who participates in American society, are responsible for the actions of our government today.

The unvarnished truth is that we have only begun to suffer the consequences of those actions.

In our arrogant determination to protect, sustain, and yet further inflate our acquired wealth, in our paranoia of losing our vaunted "life-style" of unlimited consumerism, we are rapidly descending into a new dark age of self-legislated totalitarianism. On the international "front", to sustain American economic power we have implemented a 'diplomacy' marked by international corporate blackmail backed by economic and military threat. To sustain our craving for non-renewable resources we now justify aggressive and brutal imperialistic hegemony and illegal occupation of third-world nations.

The strategy of the Empire of the United States is the strategy of subjugation, to keep third-world nations in the third world, to oppress free thought there, to limit education and the development of scientific knowledge there.

But we are not that way, you may say. America doesn't support oppression. America doesn't use its power to blackmail. America doesn't attack first. American troops don't kick down doors behind which cower women and children. We are not the bullies we convince ourselves we are blessed to save others from.

But we are that way.

Since the morning of September 11, 2001, we the people of the United States have been on our knees, literally cowering behind the brutality of American military and nuclear power, because we can't face the truth of what we've become over the last 6 decades. The truth is that on the 11th of September some 19 fellow human beings sacrificed their lives and three thousand of "our" lives in an attempt to open our eyes to ourselves.

The truth is that they succeeded.

As a result of these sacrifices and their effect upon the American Spirit, what was America is fast devolving into a house of cards, a house divided, a house built on the sand - politically, economically, and environmentally. More and more of us understand this each day.

The American Spirit we all share is a powerful force. It is the sum of all human Spirit, the sum of all the joy and sacrifice since history began.

It cannot lie to itself for long. Through report after report of killing done in our name, of torture performed in our name, of the suppression of human rights done in our name, of lying and cover-ups performed "for our own good", etc... Our American Spirit has been searing us within, crying out for justice and truth as we live our "lifestyle" - as we play the game of normal-every-day capitalism. So far, other than a few token gestures, some "protests", and many words, we've been "good Americans".

Under direct orders of our designer government we've continued shopping.

History will record our excuses too: "We were just following orders. It was really Bush, Cheney, the Neocons, the Christian Zionists, the Fascists..."

We have an endless list of scapegoats for our own apathy and neglect of humanity.

When does the American Spirit manifest itself? Do we continue pointing fingers while more people die every day? When yet another war of aggression is in the offing? Are we really going to await the next "election" before we stop ourselves? Are we going to watch more blood spilled pointlessly while the "wheels of democracy" turn? And then what? Await still another election, if by chance there are any more elections?

Most of us who understand the nature of this war also know deep within our American Spirit what has to be done.

Yet we continue to procrastinate, many waiting for some Great Leader to arise. We think, "If only we had a Thomas Jefferson...", "If only we had a Gandhi...", "If only we had a Martin Luther King, Jr..."

But we do have Jefferson. We do have Gandhi. We do have Martin Luther King, Jr. We have the words and lives of ALL who have participated in the human struggle for World Peace against the oppression and tyranny of government and the religions that suborn government.

Through these great leaders and many others, the evolution of successful revolution for change is laid out before us on history's stage. We are fortunate to be the beneficiaries of the efforts of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., whose actions made the traditional revolutionary's sword and musket, then machine guns and grenades, obsolete.

Today we know that the most efficient way to effect change in a Western society is non-violent resistance, economic boycott, and the surrender of the very lifestyle that requires the oppression and exploitation of others to begin with.

These modern weapons of revolution, applied without hypocrisy as they have been in the past by Gandhi most effectively, will bring about the societal paradigm change to Peace, if we truly want Peace.

We need to put our money where our mouth is. We need to start a Peace Revolution. Not really even a revolution, more of an exercise of our freedoms of choice to live as a peaceful people. But it is a revolution still.

In order to stop the ongoing bloodshed and oppression that WE THE PEOPLE continue to be responsible for:

We must initiate non-violent civil disobedience now, most effectively by refusing to pay any tax levied by our government, state or federal. WE THE PEOPLE must withhold from our government the means to finance war against any other people.
We must stop buying and selling now. From automobiles to gas to homes to fast food and knick knacks, WE THE PEOPLE must stop contributing to the corrupt corporate American economy that drives this war.
We must surrender our lifestyle now, surrender our possessions now. WE THE PEOPLE must become equal with those whom we have oppressed. WE THE PEOPLE must become the servants, our possessions theirs. WE THE PEOPLE must live as they live until they live as we live. WE THE PEOPLE must eat as they eat, until they eat as we eat. Those who cannot surrender their lifestyle due to health conditions or other reasons must financially support those who can. Our children and grandchildren will not need our possessions or our wealth, they will need World Peace.
We must stop financing any organized religion or any other non-profit organization that is dependent upon tax-exempt status of any kind from the government. All organizations that accept tax-exemption are basically paid to keep silent. They are threatened with loss of their non-profit status if they do not toe the government line, which means convincing their membership to toe the government line as well. WE THE PEOPLE must stop financing all such organizations, religious or secular.
We must show genuine solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. To do so, WE THE PEOPLE must overcome the false barriers erected between humanity, past and present, regardless of race or nationality, culture or religion, sex or any other consideration, now. WE THE PEOPLE must embrace our world and its history as they exist, both the good and the bad. WE THE PEOPLE have created our own circumstances. WE THE PEOPLE must stop pointing fingers, we must accept and embrace who we are and where we are, we must accept and embrace all who carried us here, and we must accept and embrace all who are here with us today.

This is a revolution that will necessarily be spontaneous on all our parts, an action of the individual American Spirit we all share. Such a revolution has been building for a long time, and it embraces all revolutions.

As you can see, there will be no leadership available as yet for this revolution, except from leaders of the past. Those currently running for office hoping to effect change and bring an end to the war are not going to succeed. Our wealth-driven democratic system is too far gone, our "needs" to maintain our lifestyle, as it exists, are too great to allow America to stop. Along the way even the most well-intentioned politician will be forced to compromise through flattery, bribery, and/or political threat.

For the time being if we need a leader to inspire us, each of WE THE PEOPLE, through our American Spirit, can resurrect a leader in our mind as required to help us do our part.

For example, when I was in fourth grade I set out to memorize the first and last paragraphs of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, because the words just rang so true to me, even at that age. They are eternal words. The parts I managed to memorize read as follows:

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."

"We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states...

"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

The concepts here, especially the concept that ALL people are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, will sustain and inspire me through this revolution. To me Jefferson still lives through all of his words. I have resurrected him. He has taken his place as one of my leaders through all the injustice, killing, oppression, lying, and violence that WE THE PEOPLE are propagating today.

What about a living leader for the revolution?

For a living and breathing great leader to stand up and lead humanity to World Peace, he or she first needs a constituency.

Great leaders do not arise from a void. They arise to fill the void created by the will of a leaderless constituency. Jefferson's constituency were the people of the 13 colonies. Gandhi's constituency consisted of the people of colonized India. Martin Luther King, Jr's constituency were the oppressed African Americans of the United States.

Though desperately needed, there is no World Peace constituency around whose members walk the walk described above today.

Let WE THE PEOPLE who want peace resolve to create a living constituency for World Peace now. Let us build a constituency whose ardent desire is World Peace, whose self-evident truths include the rights of ALL PEOPLE ON EARTH to equality, life, liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness within the culture and traditions that best suit them.

Let us build a constituency whose participants are ready to die to bring World Peace, a constituency having surrendered its lifestyle, having stood forth against the aggression and subsequent oppression wrought by our own government to sustain that lifestyle, a constituency having rejected violence and oppression of any kind against any other human being.

Let us build a constituency for that leader of the future who awaits such a constituency in order to lead all of humanity into lasting World Peace.

If we, the American People, the enlightened population of the City on the Hill, do not build a constituency now that is wholly dedicated to Peace among all of humanity, WE THE PEOPLE can read our future in the history books of any failed society that has preceded us.

If we do build it...

Additional Resources of Interest: