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Nothing Else Matters...This Comes First |
| By
Ray Larsen |
| There are basically two ways to solve a given international crisis, diplomacy/negotiation
or War. Seems the roots of many wars are over Religion, Money, Politics
or their combination. There has been one war after another as far back as
historical records go. Providing the weapons of war has spurred plenty of
innovation and technology advancement culminating in the development and
use of nuclear weapons which ended WW2, the war that was supposed to end
all wars. Nuclear weapons sure changed everything about the crazy calculus
of war. NOTHING TO WIN EVERYTHING TO LOSE Since the 1950s, the people of the world have lived under the MAD doctrine, Mutual Assured Destruction. Both sides have overkill levels of weapons, delivered by land, sea and air, enough to completely destroy each other several times over. There would be no winner because there would be nothing left to win. Over the last 50-60 years, America has been involved in many smaller wars, Korea, Vietnam, the internal Wars on Poverty, Drugs and Cancer, the Cold War, Gulf War 1, Serbia-Croatia, Afghanistan, War on Terror, Gulf War 2-Iraq, Libya, and recently Syria, Yemen, Somalia and more. MAD has somehow prevented these small wars from escalating into a nuclear showdown between the opposing superpowers. None of these wars have made anything any better. Iraq and Libya are horrible disasters. The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, or so we thought, for a while. Russia inherited a massive stockpile of nukes, roughly equaling America's stockpile. The fall could have turned out far worse if some of the former Soviet states had kept their nukes. Just imagine a nuclear armed Ukraine or Kazakhstan. WE WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN Since 9-11, America has been at war without a break. President George W. Bush enjoyed playing the role of a "War President." "Nobel Peace" President Obama won over many voters because they were led to believe he would wind down the wars and not get us involved in any more, without very good reasons. Americans have gradually become war weary. Based on his statements, voters believed candidate Trump would work hard to improve our relations with Russia, ease us out of current wars and be very careful about sending our military into conflicts we have no business intervening in. Hilary Clinton's statements said nothing of the sort, in fact she actually said that she wants to attack Iran. Everyone knows our new President has flipped a 180 on many campaign promises and there are a variety of theories about why this is happening. Here's one to consider; Over the last 2 decades of constant wars, the Military Industrial complex has become addicted to regular meals of vast sums of delicious money. Millions of non-productive, high paying jobs hang in the balance. Just the threat of Peace on the horizon has these people freaking out. Connect the dots..... THE WAR ON PEACE There is a different kind of internal war that's been going on since before Vietnam. I like to call it the War on Peace. Looking back a few hundred years in history, most wars spawned anti-war, let's call them Peace movements. These protests were opposed by the "Establishment," the police just love any excuse to beat up on hippies and peacenicks. The War on Peace made international headlines when National Guard troops shot and killed 4 student protesters, American citizens with Constitutional rights, at Kent State University, Ohio. During the Vietnam war, the massive protests actually showed up on the TV evening news, affecting public opinion, leading to the end of that nasty war. ONE MILLION PROTEST The largest protest in American history happened on June 12, 1982 in Central Park, NYC. One million people expressed their true feelings about the nuclear arms race. Since that peak, seems fewer and fewer people are willing to devote time and funds to the Peace movement, if one actually exists anymore. Six years later, a most amazing thing happened. General Secretary Gorbachev introduced Glasnost and Perestroika, the beginnings of a new openness in the Soviet Union. Somebody needs to do that in America. AMERICAN - SOVIET CITIZEN DIPLOMACY An organization called International Peace Walk, Inc. sponsored 230 Soviet and 200 American men and women of courage. These dedicated Citizen to Citizen Diplomats traveled from Washington DC, ending up at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park for a July 1988 concert, featuring both American and Soviet performers. The San Francisco government prohibited any advertising, but thanks to word of mouth, more than 25,000 fans who cared about Peace showed up anyway! A morphing Soviet government allowed similar, reciprocal events, in Moscow and other Soviet cities. Like most Americans, I didn't know about this event, it didn't get much coverage by the MSM. Sometimes, the Universe can surprise us in strange and mysterious ways. A few days ago, I was viewing some music videos on youtube. Scanning down the right side of the screen, I see one that says, "Grace Slick and Paul Kantner at Golden Gate Park 7-16-88." As a big fan of both, I couldn't help but click on it. Their message was powerful and needs to come into today’s conciseness. The first thing I noticed was a sign on the stage that said "American - Soviet." Before performing their well known anti-nuclear song, "Wooden Ships," Grace, preaching to the choir, said, "Peace, thing is about it, there are a lot of other causes, but all of those causes don't mean shit unless this one comes first!" |