Friends,(this was written over ten years ago, the points are still salient.)
In light of recent violence I wish to make a concerted call for peace. My gift and curse is deep insight and understanding of many difficult and unpopular issues, many of these issues revolve around energy, power and ultimately control of the entire social discourse. From energy and nuclear, industrial and military complexes. The entire old way of thinking pits everyone against everyone else in competition for "scarce" resources. This duality cannot stand, these systems need massive support. Like wet cement, they threaten to collapse by their own weight without massive subsidies, corporate welfare. (The union busting trend in America today has reduced wages and benefits and in the case of Wisconsin, undermined the most noble profession, the teachers) The malevolent practice of dividing the human race into "us" and "them" logically leads to a series of "haves" and "have nots".
"Bigger is obviously better" is the mantra of the world view that we are rapidly leaving behind. Anthropology yields clues to another approach which has been able to spawn creative and peaceful cultures. In her book The Chalice & The Blade Riane Eisler points out that with the myriad crises facing humanity, a more inclusive and caring culture needs to arise. A friend has recently said that the entire planet needs a mother, who can compassionately instill values in her people like leave things better than you found them, treat others with respect and to put us on a path toward a better life. My own twist on this idea is that we need to be true to the political system that we apropriated from the Iroquois Confederacy. We based our current system on theirs, with one fatal flaw. The Iroquois people only allowed the grandmothers to vote for their representatives. None of the BS that we are dealing with in the halls of Washington DC today would be tolerated if our elected leaders were beholden to the grandmothers. If we cannot change our system of voting, the time has come for each and every one of our representatives to run a gauntlet of grandmothers both coming to and upon leaving their offices. This would change our country overnight.
I stand for truth and justice in calling others to become the solution with me. We must join voices as one for peace and true security-not one that originates with an atomic debt to be paid by countless future generations, not one that rests on the muzzle of a gun pointed at our neighbors. It certainly cannot rest on a foundation of rubber bullets, toxic rhetoric and teargas. In the global village, riding on this fragile Spaceship Earth, we cannot rain destruction on one part of the planet without impacting quality of life worldwide. We can create a society of compassion by developing a sense of self that includes fruits of the heart, the mind, the spirit. I believe that our future cannot be assured unless we dismantle the tools of war, acknowledge our part as citizens and as a country, in the raping and pillaging of the planet. I believe as the Quakers, that if we see a wrong being perpetrated and we do nothing to stop it, we are as guilty as the perpetrators. Silence is complicity.
We are Shanti Sena. I honor the light within you.
Peace Warrior, Saladino
In light of recent violence I wish to make a concerted call for peace. My gift and curse is deep insight and understanding of many difficult and unpopular issues, many of these issues revolve around energy, power and ultimately control of the entire social discourse. From energy and nuclear, industrial and military complexes. The entire old way of thinking pits everyone against everyone else in competition for "scarce" resources. This duality cannot stand, these systems need massive support. Like wet cement, they threaten to collapse by their own weight without massive subsidies, corporate welfare. (The union busting trend in America today has reduced wages and benefits and in the case of Wisconsin, undermined the most noble profession, the teachers) The malevolent practice of dividing the human race into "us" and "them" logically leads to a series of "haves" and "have nots".
"Bigger is obviously better" is the mantra of the world view that we are rapidly leaving behind. Anthropology yields clues to another approach which has been able to spawn creative and peaceful cultures. In her book The Chalice & The Blade Riane Eisler points out that with the myriad crises facing humanity, a more inclusive and caring culture needs to arise. A friend has recently said that the entire planet needs a mother, who can compassionately instill values in her people like leave things better than you found them, treat others with respect and to put us on a path toward a better life. My own twist on this idea is that we need to be true to the political system that we apropriated from the Iroquois Confederacy. We based our current system on theirs, with one fatal flaw. The Iroquois people only allowed the grandmothers to vote for their representatives. None of the BS that we are dealing with in the halls of Washington DC today would be tolerated if our elected leaders were beholden to the grandmothers. If we cannot change our system of voting, the time has come for each and every one of our representatives to run a gauntlet of grandmothers both coming to and upon leaving their offices. This would change our country overnight.
I stand for truth and justice in calling others to become the solution with me. We must join voices as one for peace and true security-not one that originates with an atomic debt to be paid by countless future generations, not one that rests on the muzzle of a gun pointed at our neighbors. It certainly cannot rest on a foundation of rubber bullets, toxic rhetoric and teargas. In the global village, riding on this fragile Spaceship Earth, we cannot rain destruction on one part of the planet without impacting quality of life worldwide. We can create a society of compassion by developing a sense of self that includes fruits of the heart, the mind, the spirit. I believe that our future cannot be assured unless we dismantle the tools of war, acknowledge our part as citizens and as a country, in the raping and pillaging of the planet. I believe as the Quakers, that if we see a wrong being perpetrated and we do nothing to stop it, we are as guilty as the perpetrators. Silence is complicity.
We are Shanti Sena. I honor the light within you.
Peace Warrior, Saladino
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