Peace and War

[Global Crier]

How do people who want peace gain any credibility and legitimacy? The people who want to go to war have the military industrial complex and the United States Department of Defense in their corner giving them instant credibility and legitimacy. In our current political system the pro go to war side has the main frame of the American system supporting them. While the pro peace side is labeled and portrayed as anti American. The facts to national and international issues are translated into sound bites and headlines that are the only information most American receive.

Even people in power within the system have a hard time confronting the establishment on issues of war, a balance budget, guns, national security or the State of Israel. The more entrenched a system is the harder it is to change the ways of that system. Going against the grain of understanding of a society you become the enemy to many in that society. You will be discredited and mock by the establishment before your message is heard by the masses.
   
 Most of the military pundits said either we didn’t have enough troops in Iraq or the right-mix of military personnel in the early days of the war. The United States military had no problems with the bombing campaigns against Iraq. The United States Air Force had twelve years of practice in the airspace over Iraq. The United State had plenty of military force to win the war but not enough to win the peace. More American lives have been lost (almost two thousand lives) in Iraq trying to rebuild what we destroyed.

Gunboat diplomacy can win wars but not peace. Only by having the proper amount of trained forces for each mission can the peace be won. Today the United States Government’s Foreign Policies have alienated America from most of the rest of the world. How many different ways can the truth be told that Americans will never understand? When the American leaders tell lies that only the American people believe. The people of the world cannot understand how such a great nation is misled by so few. Only by establishing a Department of Peace within the United States government can a balance between peace and war be established.

What America needs is a Department of peace.
http://www.thepeacealliance.org/main.htm

Common sense says you cannot send more money that you have coming in for very long. Many people say you do not have to worry about the national debt as it is growing at an alarming rate.
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

The same people who say you do not have to worry about the growing national debt are pro military spending for more wars.
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp#USMilitarySpending

The facts don’t lie, people in power do.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031013/corn

My Blog http://www.globalcrier.blogspot.com/

[MODU]

Oh great, a Sheenan advocate (Department of Peace).  The problem is, that department already exists.  It's called the Department of State.  When the Department of State cannot resolve an issue through diplomacy, and the protection of the US and her allies is required, the issue goes to the Department of Defense.  Yin & Yang, my friend.

[nlm]

Not quite as simple as Yin & Yang.

But, what makes anybody that advocates a department of peace believe it wouldn't simply become some Orwellian "big" government organization? Do people actually believe a department of peace would be run by a bunch of peace loving doves from the point it is formed on?

[GOP = Terrorists]

Yin & Yang, my friend.

That is exactly the problem.  Thank you for explaining it so perfectly.  See it is not Ying and Yang and the division between war and peace should not be split equally between them.  Peace is the natural state of life and should be preserved except under extreme circumstances.  War is the most serious thing that a civilization can do.

[The Man From G.O.P.]

Yin & Yang, my friend.

That is exactly the problem.  Thank you for explaining it so perfectly.  See it is not Ying and Yang and the division between war and peace should not be split equally between them.  Peace is the natural state of life and should be preserved except under extreme circumstances.  War is the most serious thing that a civilization can do.

War, while being the most serious, is also the most affective by an exponential amount, however earth is becoming too little for a good scrap anymore, time to carry it to space!

[The Duke]

Thanks for senselessly plugging your blog, though, that was a nice touch.

[GOP = Terrorists]

War, while being the most serious, is also the most affective by an exponential amount,

You're wrong.  War is not effective in the long run unless you are willing to destroy the other civilization or where a plurality of the population of both the aggressor state and the attacked state wish it to be so.

How effective was Vietnam?

[Sam Spade]

Thanks for senselessly plugging your blog, though, that was a nice touch.

^^^^^^

[The Man From G.O.P.]

War, while being the most serious, is also the most affective by an exponential amount,

You're wrong.  War is not effective in the long run unless you are willing to destroy the other civilization or where a plurality of the population of both the aggressor state and the attacked state wish it to be so.

How effective was Vietnam?

Who said I was unwilling to destroy other civilizations?

Anyway, Napoleonic Wars, Hellenic Wars, WW1, WW2, BLAH BLAH BLAH on and on, all very effective, please name 200+ world changing diplomatic agreements


queen to d5 Checkmate

[patrick1]

Yin & Yang, my friend.

  Peace is the natural state of life and should be preserved except under extreme circumstances. 

Well that is news to me.  Somewhere a drum circle is missing a member.

[The Man From G.O.P.]

I notice your name is Global Crier, how fitting, welcome whiner!

[GOP = Terrorists]

Who said I was unwilling to destroy other civilizations?

Well of course I generally give people the benefit of the doubt that they are not genocidal monsters. =)

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Well you prove my point for me.  Lets look at WW1.  The single most significant factor in WWII are the conditions imposed after WW1.

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If you say so man. =)

[The Man From G.O.P.]

Who said I was unwilling to destroy other civilizations?

Well of course I generally give people the benefit of the doubt that they are not genocidal monsters. =)

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Well you prove my point for me.  Lets look at WW1.  The single most significant factor in WWII are the conditions imposed after WW1.

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If you say so man. =)

Please name your important non-war things now

[GOP = Terrorists]

Please name your important non-war things now

Yes because obviously I'm going to name 200+ world changing diplomatic agreements.  *rolls eyes*  Further even the premise of your question is invalid as the prevalence of an event does not signify being effective (I do assume you meant effective in the original post correct?) at anything as you yourself showed by citing WWI as an example. =)

[GOP = Terrorists]

Well that is news to me.

Think about it.  How much of your day is spent in violence?  How much in peace?  And no sport is not violence.  =)

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I will choose to give you the benefit of the doubt that this is a very insightful post by you and not a very ignorant one. =)

MLK on his funeral:

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[angus]

Yin & Yang, my friend.

which reminds me that BRTD left off Tao as a choice in his latest "religion for dummies" thread.

[Beet]

Isn't it 'War and Peace'?

Yes, because saying 'peace and war' is like saying 'white and black'. Peace is nothing but the absence of war, so to mention the absence without first mentioning the presence is wholly illogical.

As for TN2024-- Look no further than the collapse of the Soviet Union for the possibility of catastrophic political change in the absence of war. And yes, the difference in treaty systems after the two world wars (Versailles & Reparations vs. U.N. and IBRD) tremendously helped to affect the economic and social conditions that followed those wars.

[Beet]

Isn't it 'War and Peace'?

Yes, because saying 'peace and war' is like saying 'white and black'. Peace is nothing but the absence of war, so to mention the absence without first mentioning the presence is wholly illogical.

*chuckle* I was just being sarcastic.

But the sarcastic remark was actually the superior position. How ironic.

[Gabu]

Isn't it 'War and Peace'?

Yes, because saying 'peace and war' is like saying 'white and black'. Peace is nothing but the absence of war, so to mention the absence without first mentioning the presence is wholly illogical.

Is peace the absence of war, or is war the absence of peace?

Deep stuff.

[Beet]

Isn't it 'War and Peace'?

Yes, because saying 'peace and war' is like saying 'white and black'. Peace is nothing but the absence of war, so to mention the absence without first mentioning the presence is wholly illogical.

Is peace the absence of war, or is war the absence of peace?

Deep stuff.

Well I just realized how stupid my example was. A better example would have been 'life and death'. But yes... peace is the absence of war (and of activity in general), not vice-versa. Which, by the way, is why achieving peace in the Middle East is so hard.

Edit:

This is largely a matter of how our culture first chooses a concept (war, life, activity, effectual, humor) and then creates an anti-concept (peace, death, inactivity, ineffectual, humorless). For example, on Dictionary.com, the first entry for peace is
"The absence of war or other hostilities": peace is defined in relation to war. War, on the other hand, is "a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties": war is not defined in relation to peace, which is not mentioned in any of the definitions for war. Often, the concept represents a deviation from the (subconscious) norm, while the anti-concept represents the deviation from the deviation. Thus, in our culture, peace, death, inactivity, ineffectual, and humorless (passive concepts) are "the norm" (though subconsciously).

This has serious (and sometimes tragic) consequences for politics, when that which is desired is a passive and not an active result. For example, in the Middle East, a destructivist approach is taken: The Palestinians must renounce terror. Israel must halt settlement expansion. The problem with a destructivist approach is that, by defining the goal as a universal negative (the anti-concept), anyone, even a single person, can destroy the goal by 'constructing the concept' (engaging in terrorism; building a settlement). Even if 99% of people are pro-destructivists, a 1% pro-constructivist minority can frustrate them, by nature of the way in which the problem is defined. The pro-destructivists are completely powerless.

While it is easy for me to sit here behind my computer in the U.S. and pontificate about destructivism when it is someone else's daughter or someone else's home being destroyed, I firmly believe that one of the biggest mistakes of politicians during the Middle East processes were that not enough attention was given to a constructivist approach to peace. The solution is to abandon destructivism as the sole paradigm, that of peace as the "anti-concept", and find peace also as the "concept": what is peace, not just what peace is not. What specific actions and existent things, for example, can create peace? One, obviously, is total submission/domination. However, this is not feasible or desirable in all cases. The true challenge of the constructivist approach then is to finding 'peace' between sovereign groups. How this is to be achieved, I do not know, but I firmly believe that a strong constructivist approach in conjunction of course with destructivist standards is superior to the 'destructivist' approach by itself.

[MODU]

Good point, factor, which is why I said Yin & Yang.  Peace and War both exist, especially in terms of a global environment.  Since the US has her fingers in every nation for one reason or another, we experience peace and war at the same time.  After all, (for example) we're not at war with Japan like we are in Iraq, so we experience peace and war together.  And even then, we experience both peace and war in Iraq as well (peace with the new government, war with the terrorists).

[Beet]

Good point, factor, which is why I said Yin & Yang.  Peace and War both exist, especially in terms of a global environment.  Since the US has her fingers in every nation for one reason or another, we experience peace and war at the same time.  After all, (for example) we're not at war with Japan like we are in Iraq, so we experience peace and war together.  And even then, we experience both peace and war in Iraq as well (peace with the new government, war with the terrorists).

Right, though our fruitful relationship with Japan is composed more than merely the absence of violence, which is the crucial point to consider. The Japanese
1) Accept total American domination (i.e., the neoliberal international order)
2) have a powerful symbiotic economic relationship with the U.S.
This is not to say Japan has lost its distinctiveness or identity, however, their identity exists within a larger framework, i.e. that of Pax Americana. Both sides, except for some extreme Japanese right-wing nationalists, are largely content with this setup, which is reinforced by culture, institutions, and individual psychologies. This is not just peace in the sense of an anti-concept (lack of conflict), but coexistence, a positive 'thing' around which an identity can be built and material gains made (as opposed to merely harms prevented).

[patrick1]

Well that is news to me.

Think about it.  How much of your day is spent in violence?  How much in peace?  And no sport is not violence.  =)

Man has been at war since the beginning of time and if you cannot see that you are either ill informed or a misguided hippie.

Nice speech from MLK, How exactly did he die?

[GOP = Terrorists]

Man has been at war since the beginning of time and if you cannot see that you are either ill informed or a misguided hippie.

I've never been called a hippie in person but I don't mind the label when it appears the alternative is being a murderous warmonger...

And yes War has existed since before humans existed.  Goes to show you that it cant be very effective if we need to keep doing it so often. =)

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He was murdered by conservatives.  It was included above due to the words you chose and recent events. =)

[patrick1]

Man has been at war since the beginning of time and if you cannot see that you are either ill informed or a misguided hippie.

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He was murdered by conservatives.  It was included above due to the words you chose and recent events. =)

I didn't know William F. Buckley was such a good shot.