Looking at Beyond War

Re Beyond War: Three or four times a year, perhaps in a deeper sense once in a lifetime, each of us gathers all our strength to go “beyond” a conflict. To go “beyond,” I mean to resolve, to look sincerely for an answer.

In my mind, people and governments who don’t go “beyond” really don’t have that objective of looking for an answer. It isn’t the most important thing to them. It is time for the world to gather all its strength through a quality of commitment, to literally prevent extinction.

It seems that only crisis and disasters change mainstream thinking. It’s ironic to me that the adaptability that Darwin suggests will allow mankind to evolve and thus survive is the same attribute that allows mankind to drift towards nuclear destruction. It is a shame that if this Beyond War movement doesn’t grow quickly, it will take a nuclear war of some nature (there is really only one kind) to wake people up to the fact that we cannot be so selfish; selfish with our ideas, our food, and our freedom.

To ensure freedom for Americans, the United States uses people of the Third World as pawns. Installing dictators, reinforcing systems that keep the people in poverty and prolonging wars so that no social changes take place will eventually lead to economic repercussions back in the U.S.

The people of the world are interconnected and dependent on each other more than they seem to realize. It’s obvious to see how the dropping of a nuclear bomb by a nation determined to win a war will end life on all of earth. It also seems obvious that any nation determined to win a war will eventually use the bomb. Israel, India, Iran, any nation with the bomb will use it before they allow their defeat.

If not for spiritual reasons, certainly for economic reasons, and for the will to live without nuclear destruction, nations must come to see war as obsolete and see selfish motives as threads that weave an umbrella of mushroom clouds. We are all one interconnected living force needing to resolve our conflicts without violence.

NOEL WEBB

Los Angeles