The implements of war desecrate land, air and water. Depleted uranium coated bombs produce a radioactive climate that causes horrific health conditions in the living and the not-yet-born. Smoke and other emissions from explosions and fire fill earth's biosphere with matter that destroys our life-support systems. Chemical and biological weapons can kill instantly or slowly, can sterilize people and earth, can render air and water poison.
The environmental consequences of war are visited upon you whether you are at ground zero or on the other side of the planet.
Last month 30,000 teachers in California received intention to lay-off notices. Elders watch as senior centers and food programs disappear. Department heads in the County of Mendocino struggle to make the required 10% reduction in their budget, leaving people unemployed and critical human services slashed. Our rural, mountainous county is in grave peril with reduced fire protection. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars are diverted into the war machine. The economic climate of war, like the environmental climate, depletes life support and crushes our potential.
The social climate of war is insidious, fostering fear and "the other" mentality, creating hostile and bitter division among family and community on the local, national and global levels. Regardless of our position on the war, we are blinded to our commonality. We have not yet learned to define our differences, disagree with respect and good nature, and join efforts to address those issues on which we agree. This social climate is critical for those who create war; it is a classic divide and conquer technique. The social climate of war keeps opposition, indeed even open discussion, suppressed through real and perceived consequences.
Wars to colonize destroy culture. In Iraq, a US military strategy was to stand aside while the artifacts and historical documents of the Cradle of Civilization were laid to waste. It is a well-developed strategy, a cornerstone of US history with Native American, Black and Latino culture. A people whose culture is obliterated lose their identity, their roots. Their intrinsic self is characterized as faulty, and if they succumb to this mindset, they lose critical grounding for their opposition. The purveyors of war do not want cultural diversity or pride.
The climate of war seeks to demoralize, immobilize, and bring forth our most baneful, inferior self. But it does something else, as well. From the physical and emotional pain comes a powerful drive for relief. The lies supporting war's justification create an imperative for truth. Images of a mangled child or grief-stricken parent touch our humanity. The discomforting disparity between reality as our mind defines it and what our heart and soul know at the core demand reflection and reanalysis. These conditions are the fuel for the paradigm shift.
Just as modern weapons of mass destruction imminently threaten the existence of all life on earth, so does our core human nature provide our salvation. Each of us holds liberating light and love. No matter how different we appear or what our translation of reality is, we are one and the same. We choose between hate and fear or love and peace each moment of each day, in our thoughts, words and actions, toward ourselves and toward others we know and don't know. Perfect love is not an abstract concept; it is who we are when we allow ourselves to remember the origin of our creating and creation. Love is all-powerful. Peace reigns.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2003
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited