The Solution to the World's Crisis

The Solution to the World's Crisis

By Norm Lowry

18 March, 2009
Countercurrents.org

"...as a species and as a planet we have reached a point of self-imposed crisis that can neither be postponed nor evaded." Mike Ruppert

Today, our society sits at its major crossroad. Which road we take will determine our outcome. On the one hand, we have blind leaders who are leading us to the slaughter, all the while continuing to offer us their illusion of security. On the other hand, we citizens have the answers to it all; something that our selfish, greedy, mostly-criminal leaders will never accept...available, quality, creation-filled relationship. In my country (USA), our leaders think that we somehow need them, continue to voice their veiled threats & to wave their so-called power cards (poverty sanctions, racist belittlements, imprisonment & destructive weapons) over our heads & over the heads of all of the world. But here's the good news, "Tyranny cannot exist without public consent, and is therefore entirely retractable".

It has been aptly said, that "To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will starve to death." During the most recent Gaza Genocide, I publicly stated my dissent (for my country's involvement); in world media, petitions & emails by stating my belief that most of my nation's leaders are criminals who simply need to be in prison & by asking noisy Israel & the quiet UN to remove their facilities & officials from my country. My Senator's (Robert Casey PA) canned email assured me that while he appreciated my concern, the US would continue to value its unbreakable commitment to Israel. That my country wants me to believe in the fomenting of racism, poverty & murder brings lots of deep thought (with its resultant "hot anger") to my mind & heart.

Our current crisis is much larger than being simply one nation against the other. My country's self-described "elites" are intent on Global Domination; their stated design. By manipulating the world's resources (in collusion with their worldwide counterparts), the last chapter of a decades-long agenda is being played out on the world society. It is their stated design to suck us dry, while paying no mind to how many become poor, hungry, or die. Every hour, around 8000+ lives are snuffed out (as if they meant nothing) as a result of my country's economic, political, & military policies. Every day, I look at pictures of our mutilated or dead brothers & sisters (especially the children) & weep.

There is much talk about rejecting "Protectionism" yet this seems to be the drug-of-choice for most of our world's leaders & of the bulk of my country's citizens. How about if we world citizens simply tell our leaders to "take a hike" & lead the way, by giving up our individual self-protections? Mohandas Gandhi told his people that if they desired freedom, "they would have to start acting like they were free & take responsibility for their own lives, their own communities, and their own local concrete issues of poverty". To continue to sit back, hoping that this will all just go away is to seek a most cheap substitute; one that will take our tomorrow away. I want to be free...do you?

So what does freedom look like?

To a ten year old girl named Rachel Corrie, freedom was "facing aloneness"; that quality of life that materialized for her, when she realized that 40,000+ people starved to death (preventably) each day. Listen to my most remembered words of Rachel:

I’m here for other children.
I’m here because I care.
I’m here because children everywhere are suffering and because forty thousand people die each day from hunger.
I’m here because those people are mostly children.
We have got to understand that the poor are all around us and we are ignoring them.
We have got to understand that these deaths are preventable.
We have got to understand that people in third world countries think and care and smile and cry just like us.
We have got to understand that they dream our dreams and we dream theirs.
We have got to understand that they are us. We are them.
My dream is to stop hunger by the year 2000.
My dream is to give the poor a chance.
My dream is to save the 40,000 people who die each day.
My dream can and will come true if we all look into the future and see the light that shines there.
If we ignore hunger, that light will go out.
If we all help and work together, it will grow and burn free with the potential of tomorrow.

By the wise old age of 23, Rachel penned these words, "We are all born and someday we’ll all die…to some degree alone. What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid? What if our aloneness is what allows us to adventure – to experience the world as a dynamic presence – as a changeable, interactive thing?" Three months later, Rachel was crushed to death by Israeli forces beneath an American made Caterpillar army bulldozer (March 16, 2003).

To Sumayyah bint Khabbab (سمية بنت خياطّ), said to be Islam's first martyr, freedom meant the right to choose the "supreme importance", even if it led to death. To Gandhi, freedom meant that "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good". To Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred in 1945 for his part in seeking to rid the world of Adolf Hitler, freedom meant identifying with the "costly nonviolence of the cross (of Jesus)". Of freedom, Philip Berrigan said, "We are all expected to do good, to seek justice and to resist evil. We will have to resist war for the rest of our lives. We're called to serve the poor, resist the state and be ignored, ostracized and sent to jail because we do that. We all have to take responsibility for the Bomb. But this new responsibility will breed all sorts of life-giving, salvific benefits in our lives. It will create the new human person, the new creation, the just social order". To Henri Nouwen, freedom is "Peacemaking" (Prayer, Resisting Injustice, Building Community, Serving the Poor, Accepting Weakness and Vulnerability, Practicing Nonviolence, Demanding Racial Justice, Making Purposeful Connections, Being full of Gratitude, Following our Creator's Plan). He believed that “...only those who deeply know that they are loved and rejoice in that love can be true peacemakers”. To this, John Dear adds, "Somehow we have to withdraw our cooperation more and more from the system of war, nuclear weapons, economic hegemony, global oppression of the poor, and imperial violence. We have to help others realize that we are an occupied people, living in the belly of the empire, so they can withdraw their cooperation with the system of institutionalized injustice, what Jonathan Schell calls "total violence"".

I am 56 years old & this is the day I was created for. For the first 28 years of my life, I generally bought the lies of the selfish, ego-driven, racist, violent, murdering, eco-destroying, economy-sucking US Empire (& associated friends). My life was full of its own lies, cheating, & theft; a lifestyle that destroyed all that was dear to me & eventually led me to deserved imprisonment, depression & eight years of homelessness (simply walking around, lost & dead inside). During those seemingly empty years, our Creator got me quiet enough to begin to hear His voice & assisted me by opening my blind eyes. I began to seek help to change my vile ways & to read & search the Holy Books & the public record for truth. What I have found has amazed me & has absolutely set me free. Today, my sole aim is to become one, “who is jealous of none; who is a fount of mercy; who is without egotism; who is selfless; who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery; who is ever forgiving; who is always contented; whose resolutions are firm; who has dedicated mind and soul to God; who causes no dread; who is not afraid of others; who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear; who is pure; who is versed in action yet remains unaffected by it; who renounces all fruit, good or bad; who treats friend and foe alike; who is untouched by respect or disrespect; who is not puffed up by praise; who does not go under when people speak ill of him; who loves silence and solitude; and who has a disciplined reason" (Gandhi). I am free...do you want to be free?

Here is your invitation to freedom! In spite of the seemingly overbearing threat of worldwide destruction (which is guaranteed to come, if we don't take charge), I am inviting you to join me in a simple acknowledgment that our leaders are blind & have taken us to the edge of destruction. I'm inviting you to join me in trusting that the vision of peace that we carry deep in our hearts can be realized, if we work together to throw off the bonds of racism, poverty, oppression & murder that dominate most of our leader's thoughts. Our grand heart-dreams can become reality...beginning today. This will cost us...some of us, most dearly...including death. Yet, what would this cost be, compared with the destruction past & the guarantee of destruction future (if we do not take charge)? I am not advocating violent overthrow, as such. Violence never erases violence...period! What I am advocating is this: Say no to the lies, in practical ways. Refuse to take unfair advantage of anyone. Refuse to speak an evil of anyone. Refuse to buy or sell products that come from slave labor. Raise your hand in violence against no one; restrain but do no harm in return. Refuse military service. Honor & Love your Creator, by honoring & loving your neighbor (this includes the most evil of neighbors). Stand in the way of weapons of destruction & peacefully destroy them. Take a bullet or imprisonment (if necessary)...for Love. As John Dear says, "Only peacemakers can see the way forward toward a world of peace".

The Solution to the World's Crisis is available, quality, creation-filled relational community!

Please join me in bringing this to pass.