Greetings Fellow Bloggers and other miscreants:
O ho ... remember that oldie, but goodie? I hardly dare haul it out of the closet. It's sort of dusty and wrinkly. But let's take a look at it for a moment. We'll shake it out. And take it for a spin around the block to see what happens.
I was thinking about this the other day. It popped into my head. I remember it from my childhood during the Vietnam War. I remember all the peaceniks chanting it under Nixon's White House. I had no idea what they meant. I'm not sure they did either. They were very earnest, those young people.
But here's what I was thinking about it. There are very few leaders who have honestly ever given peace a chance. I can pretty much count them on one hand. Um, Gandhi. And ... Martin Luther King, Jr. Is there anyone else? Jesus. Anyone else? Even though I consider myself a Christian by calling, I will have to say here that I would not say that Jesus gave peace a chance. I would say that because Jesus was not a political leader, and here I'm talking politics. So, although I call myself one of his followers, I'm throwing his name out of this ring. Back to the drawing board ... I can't think of any others. Can any of you? If you can, please post them in the Comments because I'd like to get a conversation going on this. I'm going to continue on with my thoughts here.
Alright ... here's the problem. For the last, oh, all of recorded history, whenever there has been a conflict between nations or kings, the drums of war roll. It's what we do. But when have we seriously, and I mean seriously, tried peace. Who has given peace a chance? Gandhi did. And with stunning consequences. War has a somewhat less remarkable record. A win usually comes at a very high price.
I just wonder what would happen if we truly sat down one day, banged our swords into plowshares and really did give peace a chance. What would that look like? Take a moment ... Imagine.
About Me
- Granuaile
- The Pirate Queen of Connaught - "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak out with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak." MLKjr.
2 comments:
What about Chamberlain? You know, the British Prime Minister in the 30's that gave peace a chance by letting Hitler move into Austria and Czechoslovakia so he wouldn't try to take western Europe? That worked out real well for Britain, didn't it?
I'm torn on this because we're supposed to turn the other cheek, but does that apply on a national level? What is a leader's moral obligation? To give peace a chance and risk another country seeing it as a sign of weakness so that many people are killed? Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them?
You have a point there. I'm thinking that didn't work out so well for France either! That's always the danger. But my point (which, admittedly, I did not make very well) has more to do with when one is the party of the aggressor than the reciever. For instance, two years ago, when we decided to go war in Iraq. There were many other options to unseat Hussein, as it turned out, than war. What might have happened if we'd tried some of them?
Post a Comment