What gives rise in otherwise at least somewhat rational, considered mature and civilized human beings to perpetuate atrocities such as war in which innocent women, men and children are maimed, severely harmed or killed en masse year after year and century after century?

Rhetoric and linguistic facades help us dance around ways of saying things that are true but often too painful to stomach. In this light, war is really nothing but State-sponsored violence and ‘mass murder, is it not’? Perhaps the only difference is that the actions are slabbed with a large dose of rhetoric about promoting Democracy.

Surely we seek to soften the blow of reality with justifications and rationalizations for the State-sponsored actions but all know that what is at play is what General Smedley Butler called out 75 ago, which he put simply: “War is a racket”. He knew first-hand that as a General in the U.S. Army, he was being asked to defend the corporate empires of U.S. companies in Central America. War is a game of the rich, all about power and money. Don’t be fooled!

These days, even the Archie Bunkers of the world see that the Emperor has no clothes.

When someone has a drinking problem, we call it almost anything but alcoholism. We say, “ah, you know, he drinks a bit too much”, or “yes, he’s got a wee bit of a drinking problem.” Or “he’s just having a social drink or two with his business partners” even when he comes home so drunk, he can hardly stand abusing anyone in his way who dares to suggest that there’s something “not right here”.

Rarely do we say “Dear Sir, you have a serious drinking problem, and you are profoundly harming yourself and others around you. You are what we call, even in polite company, ‘an alcoholic”. Protect those you love and yourself: Get help now!” In that light, with this analogy for those behind war, perhaps we should form a new 12-Step Program called WA, “War-Makers Anonymous”.

Families, whole cultures, cities and land on which people live, build and farm care devastated for truly no reason but what is considered political gain and certainly financial profit for military corporations. It is devastating on every level, yet is perpetuated, always with rationale, year after year, Administration after Administration, be it Democrat or Republican.

We the People’s tax money is wasted, plainly spoken, not to sincerely make peace through diplomacy but rather on making more war. It is a pestilence perpetuated by politicians under the influence of the military industrial complex that a general and President warned us about. We have lived and tolerated this pathology for centuries against millions of people’s better judgment. There is a major call around the world to make this insanity stop.

The U.S. and allies (those who are willing to go to war together at a moment’s notice are called allies), occupied and fought in Afghanistan for 20 years. Within days of the U.S. military departure, the Taliban regained its rule, with around quarter of a million lives lost and the loss of taxpayer money of some trillion dollars that we know about. The two major wars in the first part of this century were the Afghani and Iraqi wars. Curiously, these two cultures are among the oldest in the world. The Ukrainian culture is one of the most beautiful, richest and spiritually alive cultures on the planet for millennia. Yet it is the locus of yet another war many of us are seeking to bring to a close as soon as possible. This one is clearly a proxy war despite protestations and is leading to food and energy shortages all over the world.

Today alone, there are 27 wars being fought in the world. The other major war occurring today, is in Yemen, again, one of the oldest cultures on the planet.

These cultures represent a good portion of human civilization. War destroys the fossils, art, architecture, museums. It lays waste to it all. For what? A few rich men’s folly? Power? Pocketbook?

Each of these cultures hold precious relics of human history. But those who perpetuate war don’t care about the finer, much more important things in life like art and culture. They care about selling weapons and appearing to advance, believe it or not, “the moral, high ground”. Nothing could be more preposterous and further from the truth.

They probably would prefer to erase human history altogether, asking what’s profitable in it….

We have to call this out and call it for what it is: a horrific, devastating, barbaric, dangerous deception. If young people are led to believe that making war is an expression of the moral high ground, our future is in even more serious trouble.

I'm mad as hell & I won't take it anymore!

The film Network and Howard Beale had it right decades ago. How much has changed? The stranglehold on media and on accurate information flow has been tightened and perverted. Books are being burned, not in Nazi Germany but in the United States of America.

Thankfully, more people of all ages, are waking up to the atrocities of war for people and planet and are increasingly demanding an end to the madness. Win Without War, an organization that calls out the atrocities of war and who is behind them, is one of the very vocal ones.

We don’t want government’s rationalizations any longer. It is the leader’s failure to negotiate peace is why war persists. Their failure is wrapped up in their need for campaign contributions from the military industrial complex. This is the sick and vicious circle the world has been enduring for way too long.

There is war because those running governments want war. Otherwise, they would sit at the negotiation table until they have hammered out an agreement for peace. We the People have written countless letters, made innumerable phone calls to our representatives and have marched in the streets for decades. Does it do any good? Yes, actually it does, but apparently not enough. Our outrage doesn’t compare to $100,000 in the coffers from a lobbyist.

How do we break this cycle which 99% of people across the world have no interest in sustaining, yet we are dragged into it by the legal requirement to pay taxes which in turn funds war and mass destruction? Change that legal requirement? Or is it really a request and voluntary in nature? Who knows the truth about this? This legal requirement coerces us against our will, to be complicit in crimes against humanity. There is certainly God’s law that supersedes this, and perhaps Constitutional Law as well but it goes unchallenged.

Those who work for peace and cooperation among people are working for the very survival and sustainability of the species. Due to this heroic work, we stand a much greater chance of overcoming the pathological ambitions of a small group of characters who currently wield decision-making powers to make war. But it takes more.

Does voting a democracy make?

In what we call Democracies across the world which extoll the virtue of voting as an expression of our freedom, what is usually missing are people for whom we would want to vote. The choices are so limited by non-Democratic systems in place such as corporations buying candidates for instance, such as dark money swarming around Washington as thick and abundant as polluted air, it is hard to breathe democratically free air. Or gerrymandering, an utterly manipulative method of securing votes through a thoroughly undemocratic and unethical yet legal method.

It's hard to believe but there are laws in some states that prohibit our ability to bring food and water to those who may have been waiting in line to vote for hours. How then, with absurd laws like this, can we call this a free and Democratic country? Who thought up these laws and who passed them?! We would naturally want to ask: whose agenda are they seeking to fulfill?

The laws for voting in the U.S. differ from state to state. We have the technology to process votes by computer easily. What is missing is the deep dive into the software to make sure it’s free of any codes that would skew the accuracy of the vote.

The dive is necessary at this point in time because the levels of the public’s trust in officials is so abysmally low that it needs to be done until we can upgrade humanity’s rather base level. It wasn’t always like this, was it? Trust is a salient issue.

But even still, that some states don’t allow voters to bring food and water into line or others to bring same is just ridiculous and are decisions that need to be immediately rescinded. How dare a State intervene in our lives like this and the people of the State not immediately rebel and force its rescission?

It appears that it is Republicans that are passing such undemocratic, freedom-compromising laws. How is that when it has been the Republican Party that has traditionally stood for small government, freedom and liberty? Their effort to reduce the voting population is obvious, especially the votes of minorities.

Voting is just one hallmark of a Democracy. Freedom of choice across the spectrum of choices, be it where to live, work, play or how to care for one’s health one’s own way. All of these are being compromised by both Parties. This is no longer a party at all.

Military bases & war are the world’s biggest polluters

Fossil fuels foul are air and major corporations dumping pollutants into our rivers render water unpotable. But the biggest polluters of them all are the military bases and war itself. The use and massive consumption of fossil fuel is among what makes these so toxic. Add to that depleted uranium, chemical warfare and the ever-present threat of nuclear warfare.

To end war, to vastly reduce the military and to close bases around the world would dramatically reduce our carbon footprint. The solutions are here—just no one in government’s highest positions wants to listen and to abide by commonsense that the simplest man knows in every cell in his body.

Dostoyevsky fleshed out war and peace like no other. We should have learned the lesson from him if we didn’t learn it back in the day of Lysistrata when women refused to sleep with their men until they stopped engaging in the insanity of war. Let’s learn it this time, even absent novel and play.

Building a culture of peace

Those of you who read my articles know that after I describe the problems of war and the impulse to violence, then recognize the challenges to creating a culture of peace, I then champion that creation and ambitiously push our minds and hearts, our chemistry and hormones, our state of evolution and consciousness toward that most desirable state inwardly and outwardly of peace.

When we place ourselves into a personal state of peace through meditation, Chi-Kung, Yoga, playing sports, walking in Nature, fishing, what have you, it is so beautiful and serene, no one wants to leave it or live without it.

This personal state is the basis of a planetary state being a fractal of the whole. I am aware of the serious conflicts at play in the world, the ego clashes which seem unresolvable, but I remind us all that these are just a bunch of people making up stories of what they want and they have the muscle to push violence on everyone else.

Deep enough digging and dialogue, Dynamic Diplomacy, deep desire for resolution, can guide even the bullies to peace. There is a psychology behind bullying and at this point we know it quite well. Government is the bully and the People are the Peace-Makers.

Counselors these days effectively convince gang leaders to drop their guns and turn toward peace.

The Guardian Angels, once a violent gang, turned toward protecting people instead of hurting them a long time ago. It’s a beautiful story of transformation that has continued at this point for generations. The possibility for transformation is great but we act as though it’s not. The possibility is great.

If we poise our minds to peace, to the good, we can embody the archetypes of all ages and all mythologies the world over that tell the story of Good over Evil, of Clarity over Confusion, of Cooperation over Competition, of Good Will & Cheer over Lassitude and Fear and of Love over Hate and Indifference. It takes more courage to do something and be something different, to take the road less traveled, and to stand up for Peace over War, and indeed, our emotional intelligence and maturity are calling us forward to do just that.

Think of the trillions of dollars that will be saved and democratized to build a renewable energy-based infrastructure and economy—running on photons instead of on hydrocarbons! Think of building schools for real education, housing and vertical farming for all, playgrounds galore and even ending, once and for all, hunger, and poverty on the planet.

All this is possible when we go beyond a culture of war to a culture of peace. It is possible when we make a commitment to making peace and resolving any issue needed to bring this about.

I suggest that the archetype of peace, love and celebration is much more powerful for the valiant than the archetype of war, violence and destruction. It is our job to embody that finer, lighter, more peaceful and loving archetype.