Peace for Children. Peace for Our Children. Peace for All Children.
Peace for All People.
All people deserve to live in peace.
The real vital national interest is peace - and not war.
The real vital national interest is to create mutually beneficial and cooperative economic structures - as opposed to the economics of domination, as opposed to policies of imperialism.
The real vital national interest is social justice and ecological sustainability - not exploitation - nor any other harmful economic activities, which cause so much, and so many, horrendous social and environmental degradations.
I believe that it is wrong for some people to personally "benefit" from activities that are socially and/or ecologically exploitative, abusive, or harmful in any other way.
Check out this video of a speech by teenager Severn Suzuki to a UN Conference on Environment and Development: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW_YxJy-9Y8
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Again, I love this. I believe in these words. But I look around and wonder how it's even possible to live completely like we should in the modern society we're in. Sometimes I feel forced to oppress without the intent of it.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine and I just had a conversation about being a consumer and oppression and environmental responsibility. I feel like everything I touch or use has been made unethically at some point. I can hand make my clothes, but how was the material made? My sewing machine? What about the packaging for my fair trade food? My energy efficient light bulbs--how were they produce? Every electronic (cell phones, computers, cameras, etc) contains conflict materials like gold and tin. My furniture, bedding, right down to the bricks and bolts that hold my house together... Whew, my head spins when I start thinking of it too hard.
And then, you can buy fair trade, but lots of fair trade options come from other countries. They have to be shipped to you. That takes energy and emissions from airplanes to import that fair trade handbag or coffee or piece of pottery....
Gah, I feel stuck!
Great thoughts, thanks for contributing. You're not alone in feeling stuck, or frustrated. I admit to even feeling aggravated, at times, about the ways of the world
ReplyDeleteI think you're high level of awareness and caring (about the structural injustice, violence and oppression in our society) set you apart from most people.
And I think there is reason for hope, because I think that once enough people become fully aware and caring, that there will be a real possibility for all people to live in a way that is holistically harmonious with the entirety of existence.
With enough aware, caring and activated people, it would be possible to have a society that is not add odds with, or harmful to, itself nor its constituent components.
This gets to the heart of the structural nature of the problem. It's not any one person's fault. It's not any one group's fault.
I think what we need is a cultural transformation, an evolution to a different type of society that takes seriously the wonderful potential for having a world that is benign and peaceful; a world where it's widely enough considered unacceptable to engage in harmful activities that such activities, and eventually the mentality that leads to them, are rendered obsolete.
So I think that you don't need to feel really down. Take courage, and I think you deserve to feel happy that you are gracing the leading edge of the envelope of challenging the status quo of structural injustice. You're working to make that other world possible.