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juliaoceania -> RE: The Pro Peace Movement in the USA (6/11/2011 10:54:56 AM)
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quote:
. But it is difficult to consider them "peace" movements when our presence is suppressing the level of violence in a situation and/or maintaining what precious little relative peace exists there at all.
Militarization does not lead to peace...
I remember something my conservative history professor said in a class that stuck with me, probably not in the way that he had hoped, but I take my truth where I can find it... you do not build an army as a pretty play set. A well provided for and trained army is built for one reason, to use.
We spend astronomical sums on our military, outspend the rest of the world by huge sums, and we do not do this for defense, we do it to use them.
If you really paid attention to what people were saying in this movement, it is that the priority on militarization needs to shift to domestic spending in ways that uplift people, instead of blowing them into little bits. You make peace in your own backyard, and you create justice in your own backyard, you cannot accomplish these things at the point of a gun, because the minute you remove the gun, people are back to doing what they were doing before.
It is like "giving" people democracy. We can't give people democracy, democracy has to be something that they want. It has to be something that they gain for themselves, too.... and we do far more to stand in the way of real democracy than we do to enable it....
Example: I read the neocons on this very forum spouting about how the explosion of protests in the middle east demanding democracy will mean Islamic governments, as if those people do not have a right to decide their own government... either you want democracy, or you don't
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