- If you take a right at the Baghdad airport, and walk
out into the scorching sands, due west for 3.2 miles, you will enter the
portal that will take you to a place removed from turbaned men from the
East killing helmeted uniformed youth from the West. In times of war,
mostly vague, mostly obscure mantra's, of tried and true tattered-blood
soaked words from the pages of history; lead multitudes of new generations
into the killing fields.
-
 Men are fighting for words
long bled of meaning. Men have fought for eons in swirling sandstorms,
in swamps, on rocky beaches, in fields of poppies; for words, for honor,
for each other's God of War, and paradoxically Peace. "Blessed are
the peacemakers" has men piling naked "liberated" people,
taken from their villages in massive sweeps, "just for fun".
Soldiers, from once upon a time, idyllic small town America, become their
darker sides, if not firmly anchored in moral certitude. Rather than address
the carnage and bestiality that war inflicts on men/women of woods and
streams and summer carnivals; of dusty lanes, the church bell's echo,
the silent canvas of nature's majesty; neighbor is currently pitted against
neighbor, as the venom of war, once thought so distant seeps down scented
lanes and into hearts once filled with" Amazing Grace." None
that plan or practice masochistic, savage torture, on the brown people
of various lands will ever stand in the court's docket. Instead, the sacrificial
pawns of small town America will bear the brunt of Salem Witchcraft trials.
A prison called, "The Father of Strangers", in the end makes
strangers of us all. No-one will think to put the authors of war on trial,
that made monsters of these youngsters, who once laughed and ran down
small town paths, catching fireflies in the night.
-
 "Bring them on",
so glibly spoken, behind walls of Secret Service, concrete barriers, Ninja
warriors in body armor, cameras, and snipers on rooftops; has the blind,
the limbless, the poisoned; of Once Upon America, the end result. Home
from war, with useless medals, that will not heal or make them whole.
Across the land, far from media's manufactured paranoia, and shallow,
superficial sensationalism; the families and friends of America's youth,
console themselves with hollow words of patriotism-and whispered readings
of the Twenty-Third Psalm. These youthful warriors never lived to parade
down New York City's Fifth Ave, in a confetti parade of flag waving citizens,
armored might and politicians pontificating puffery. How does one win
a battle against a concept? What beach do you storm on what hill do you
plant our flag? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
-
- Men are not created to kill, maim, torture, and annihilate
one another in the most heinous ways imaginable. He/she must be programmed,
conditioned into non-thinking, non-questioning, passive obedience. "Just
following orders"; in the end, doesn't stand up in a Nuremberg setting,
but they are not to think of this. The enemy in any coinage war or act
of Profits over People is dutifully labeled; as "sub-human, vermin,
unclean, geek, gook, acceptable risk, collateral damage, towel head, rag
head, sand nigger etc. "It's easier to kill the nameless. The wondrous
gifts, culture, talents, and humanness of the "other" is forever
lost in this madness called war. Pulverized, annihilated, crushed, melted,
shredded in a theater of Shock and Awe. The laughter and love in desert
villages, or bustling city markets, is no less important, than our own
enclaves of removed tranquility, majestic marshlands, country stores, or
steeple churches echoing forth on a Sunday morning; "Amazing grace
how sweet the song that saved a wretch like me"
-
- What diabolical insanity has men in secret laboratories,
or industrial war machine factories, creating and building genocidal weapons?
What depravity has billions upon billions being spent on bombs that have
to be rolled off planes, which suck the oxygen from the air, and rupture
the organs of all the brown people in its path? What lunacy invents weapons
that shred the limbs from children, poisons lands and people with depleted
uranium, stun guns that send electric shocks into people, sound machines
that break eardrums, and computer guided missiles that kill from a distance?
-
 Billions, trillions, are being spent
to destroy a blue gem in the universe. The harm being done to the earth
and its multitudes is irretrievable and immeasurable. Nuclear waste, toxic
waste, poisoned oceans, mercury laden fish, mountain tops mined, mind numbing
medicines, sterile seeds, genetically altered animals and food, toxic sludge
on farmlands, growth hormones in milk, etc. Treaties (circumventing the
public process) sell off jobs, timber, oil, gas, water and the lives of
billions; as the clowns with hatchets in maniacal madness; turn the isolated
village wedding, the market place of farmer's wares, the glacier wilderness,
rain forest wonderment, the factory town, the nation's farms, the county
fair, the small town carnival, with its work-a-day people; into a lustful,
plundering, chaotic, indentured, global wasteland.
-
- What about the people? What do the people wish for?
Do they wish for a brown God and white God in some distant nebula throwing
down songs of praise on days of worship and on all others formulas for
wholesale death and marching songs for war? Which God is greater? Is it
Allah against Yahweh? Do these Gods wear battle dress on Monday and priestly
robes on Sunday (or day of worship)? As people of the white God, are we
to only "do unto others as they would do unto us" and "love
thy neighbor as thyself" only on Sunday? Are we to feed the hungry,
welcome the stranger, visit the sick, clothe the naked on Sunday, and kill
them on Monday? Is God mentally ill? Is God a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian
or Communist?
-
- As the echoes of war grew near and Congress abandoned
the people; millions upon millions took to the streets throughout the whole
of the earth crying, "Peace-peace". The lap-dog media, like Pavlov's
dogs, paid little heed, and instead brought the people the latest antics
of some bleached specter from Never-Never Land, the latest murder, or
thrilling car chase. The people marched in Great Britain, Spain, Turkey,
America, Germany, France, Japan, etc., crying "Let there be peace
on earth". Those in boardrooms, war rooms, bunkers, and banks decided
otherwise. The multitudes were labeled a mere "focus group"
with leadership declaring "Those not with us are against us."
Still the drumbeat would not be silenced. The answer to this cry for Peace
were minions of armored men with clubs, stun guns, cages for dissent,
tear gas, and cities wrapped in razor wire. Freedom's voice is an action
of the heart of man's spirit. There are not enough men for hire, dogs,
gas, clubs or miles of concrete walls or barbed wire to chain or stifle
it. Freedom cannot be caged, beaten, gassed, or clubbed into submission.
The cry for Peace and Freedom's choice, if ever silenced will see the
end of human kind.
-
 Peace as visualized for
some is the desert village, olive groves, and a sharing of life's resources.
It's laughter, sacrifice, and loving of all men of all colors, creeds,
and religions. Peace is creative. Where you see greed, selfishness, indifference,
and violence, you'll not find Peace. Peace is a wind swept fishing village,
cattle grazing on western plains. Peace is the farmer in the early dawn
leading his cattle to pasture. Peace is the father home from work, a child's
laughter, and neighbors singing round a bonfire. Peace sees none hungry,
no homeless, nor suffering, without compassion's presence. Peace goes
about her life without searches, papers please, neither retina scans nor
camera watching. Peace has no partnership with Fear. Peace above all protects
the weak, the voiceless, the powerless and confronts all injustice. Peace
is one with nature. She sees to proper stewardship of waters, land, and
air. Where there is no way Peace makes a path.
-
- It need not be that in finding Peace you take a right
at the Baghdad airport to find its portal. It's right where you are. Be
it desert sands or a hidden village with its marshlands, general store,
steeple church and dusty lanes, just imagine your part in crying Peace
On Earth. It's not the job of the few, a hobby, nor even a march of song
and puppets. Its God is neither white nor brown. It has no party affiliation
nor does it harbor any bias or prejudice against any persons. Peace can't
be marched for-paradoxically, it must be fought for; not with the weapon's
of man but of the Spirit. "You may say I'm a dreamer; but I'm not
the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will live as
one." J.Lennon
-
- Wherever your "imagined" peace, take that
right turn and bring it into being-wherever you reside. Yes even in the
midst of battle.
- "There's a place for us,
- A time and place for us.
- Hold my hand and we're halfway there
- Hold my hand and I'll take you there,
- Somehow, someday, somewhere.
- (song-Somewhere There's a Place for Us)
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