Peace

TheFarSideOfCrazy

Within my lifetime there has not been a single day when the United States military has not been engaged in some sort of activity in a country outside of itside borders. In fact, the same is true of really any generation in the past century. I don't think that this says something solely about American or western culture. The fact is that not a day goes by when there isn't some form of violence, be it on a large or small scale. Hate plagues every nation, culture and ethnicity.

I only bring this up because today I started watching a DVD called Peace. It was a bit unsettling that the entire video was pretty typical anti-war/Bush stuff. As much as I respect Howard Zinn I think that it's a bit naive for him to talk about the ameerican people as though they are essentially good. As though there were a time when America and the people who lived within its borders were peaceful and content to live with what they had. Instead I see a group of people waiting to accept the propaganda that their leaders were presenting them with. The subjigation of Native Americans was not monopolized by the Federal government. There were plenty of people who needed little help in hating, killing and the land of the indigenous people on this continent. Just like today many Americans take quite easily to hating Mexicans for whatever reasons they can muster.

The fact is that no culture has every been peaceful. And I don't jsut mean non-violent either. People everywhere are capable of terrible atrocities. And they wuite often make good on that capability. There seems to be a persistent cloud of darkness hanging over the world. There is no thoughtfully layed out plan to eliminate the evil that makes violence persists. That may sound a bit depressing. But I really don't think that it is. I hope for the day when the creator god YHWH re-creates his world and permanenly puts an end to the violence that plagues his creatures, and the other abusive and dehumanizing representations of evil.

More on this to come...