The crisis is not primarily economic. The crisis we face is that of ecological collapse, due to a multitude of factors- global warming and climate change, overpopulation, dwindling resources of all sorts- food, water, oil. Perhaps most alarming is the damage to life forms, as species disappear, monoculture with genetically modified organisms destroys biodiversity among food plants, and the use of depleted uranium weaponry spreads DNA-destroying radiation around the globe.
As the alarm bells grow louder, the need for global cooperation to solve global problems becomes more and more apparent. We need peace, desperately, to contain and start to reverse the damage to the biosphere.
War not only prevents nations from cooperating, it contributes immensely to global warming, pollution of all sorts, famine, waste of resources, not to mention human suffering.
“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe,as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people.Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conductedfor the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses." - Major General Smedley Butler
The planet is being run by predators, whose only thought is to strip mine while there's anything good left. They are greedy selfish monsters, who have no concern about future generations. They hide behind puppet governments and multinational corporations, so that it's hard to target the individuals who have become multibillionaires at the expense of everybody and everything else.
For them, war is a vehicle for profit. It's ideal, in that it uses up resources that have to be replaced, endlessly. Since the buyers are governments, the vendors of weaponry and other war-related products can inflate their costs enormously with little oversight, especially when the makers of war products control the government, as with Halliburton and Cheney, Carlyle and Bush.
When those two took office, the world was relatively peaceful. The Cold War was over, Russia and America were allies and were cooperating on disarmament measures. There were skirmishes here and there, but no major conflicts.
Bush changed all that. Even during the 2000 campaign, he was pushing to dismantle the key treaty capping the arms race between the superpowers, the AntiBallistic Missile Treaty. He was eager to start a new arms race so that his corporate buddies could benefit from the boondoggle called missile defense. After the false flag operation of 9-11, he declared an endless "war on terror", using that engineered catastrophe as an excuse to quickly withdraw from the ABM treaty, invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and generate billions of dollars for his and Cheney's family corporations.
We just wasted eight precious years, while climate change has proceeded apace and the environment continues to deteriorate. With a new administration, and the crisis alarm bells clanging loudly, we have a chance for peace.
Obama has professed a desire to talk to Iran, to work for nuclear disarmament, and even to cut the military budget. If we get a strong, revitalized peace movement behind him, we actually might have a chance to stop the war machine.
Peace activists are experiencing major burnout after the bleak Bush years. We were constantly battling to get out of Iraq, with no success. It's easy now to just sit back, take a break, and see what Obama will do. He's sending mixed signals, very hawkish on Afghanistan, more dovish on Iran and Iraq.
His big focus is on the Holy Land. Making peace there will undercut the psychotic push toward nuclear war on the part of the rapture cultists, who believe that the Bible prophesies a final grand battle at Megiddo outside of Jerusalem- Armageddon, after which the true believers will be raptured up to heaven, leaving "The Late, Great Planet Earth" as Hal Lindsey called it in his popular book, to those of us who will be "Left Behind", to suffer the tribulation.
Actually, the Bible prophesies a period of figurative cleansing by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, this is what is needed, a mass change of heart away from the materialist consumer culture which permits the corporate predators to flourish, toward a sense of universal love and brotherhood, which all the great religions teach. When this occurs, and it better happen soon, the US will start to cooperate with other nations to solve global problems.
A Peace Plan for the Holy Land is now being distributed to Christian leaders, here and in the Holy Land, which is based on the Old Testament, New Testament and Qur'an. It is fair, provides land for both Jews and Palestinians, according to boundaries laid out in the Torah and prophets. Since it relies on holy writings of all three Abrahamic religions, true believers in all three faiths should embrace it.
If you would like to see it, please email me at cwolman@mcn.org. It's the only plan I've seen that actually has the potential to turn things around. If Obama is really looking for peace, he will welcome hearing about it.
There is no more time to waste. The planet needs peace NOW.
In the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, Carol Wolman
