You are hereBlogs / dlindorff's blog / Israel, Palestine and Iran It's Time To Feed the Hungry Peace Wolves

Israel, Palestine and Iran It's Time To Feed the Hungry Peace Wolves


By dlindorff - Posted on 02 October 2013

By John Grant

 


All we are saying is give peace a chance
        - John Lennon
 

Whether war or cooperation is the more dominant trait of humanity is one of the oldest questions in human discourse. There are no satisfying answers for either side exclusively, which seems to suggest the answer is in the eternal nature of the debate itself.

David P. Barash in an op-ed [1] in The New York Times called “Are We Hard-Wired For War?” tells a powerful story from Cherokee legend. A girl goes to her grandfather and tells him of a dream she had of two wolves viciously fighting. He tells her that her dream represents the “two forces within each of us struggling for supremacy, one embodying peace and the other war.”

But, grandfather, she asks, who wins?

His answer: “The one you feed.”

I’m a Vietnam veteran and have been a member of Veterans For Peace for 28 years. In the 1990s, the organization took up the themeAbolish War!

I could never quite absorb what that meant. I always wanted to know who was going to hold the gun to the heads of the war-mongers of the world? Now, c’mon you guys, just stop that! The idea is still alive in the peace movement, as in the new book by David Swanson [2]called War No More: The Case For Abolition.

I enthusiastically share the sentiment of the Abolish War! movement but doubt its effectiveness. Non-violence, in Gandhi’s sense as a “truth force,” is a powerful political tool to oppose unjust power, but how does anyone abolish war and make it just go away? War, by definition, would seem to trump such good-intentioned legislation. War isn’t something that can be ordered out of existence; it has to be wooed and coaxed into submission by forces working for peace. Fears have to be allayed. Furies have to be soothed.

It seems to me the answer lies in plain sight -- in Lennon’s so simple lyric about giving peace a chance. It lies in taking the time to question the necessity to bomb someone. It lies in counting to ten to reflect on unanticipated consequences. It lies in being aware of the demonization process everyone is susceptible to that makes enemies of people who live or worship differently. It lies in granting the otherequal human status, by pausing to realize maybe those odd lumps on their heads really aren’t horns -- and that maybe they're even the result of head wounds inflicted by us. It lies in fighting off the insecurity and fear of losing an immense advantage gained from history. It lies in recalling the lessons from Sandbox 101 to share your stuff. It lies in understanding how miraculous life is and how small-minded humans can be. It lies in encouraging humility over arrogance...


For the rest of this article by JOHN GRANT in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new uncompromising four-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1989

Speaking Events

2017

 

August 2-6: Peace and Democracy Conference at Democracy Convention in Minneapolis, Minn.

 

September 22-24: No War 2017 at American University in Washington, D.C.

 

October 28: Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference



Find more events here.

CHOOSE LANGUAGE

Support This Site

Donate.

Get free books and gear when you become a supporter.

 

Sponsors:

Speaking Truth to Empire

***

Families United

***

Ray McGovern

***

Julie Varughese

***

Financial supporters of this site can choose to be listed here.

 

Ads:

Ca-Dress Long Prom Dresses Canada
Ca Dress Long Prom Dresses on Ca-Dress.com

Buy Books

Get Gear

The log-in box below is only for bloggers. Nobody else will be able to log in because we have not figured out how to stop voluminous spam ruining the site. If you would like us to have the resources to figure that out please donate. If you would like to receive occasional emails please sign up. If you would like to be a blogger here please send your resume.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.