When Will We Ever Learn?
If public opinion would frown against violence, it would lose its power. Leo Tolstoy
by Cindy Sheehan

... when I think of the violence that can start early in the morning when we switch on the TV and attack us all day with one image and experience or another until we fall into restless sleep, stressed-out and exhausted from another day of hatred, it is easy to dismiss what is going on in our society as "normal." When we realize that violence is not normal, and not give the cop-out excuse that we as humans are somehow "hardwired" to be violent and non-violence is abnormal, then our society and culture will never change.

Violence begets violence and killing begets killing. All we have to do is notice how our leaders consistently use their votes or their signatures or their orders to beget and condone violence, and we shouldn't be shocked when our soldiers in the field commit acts of atrocity which I am sure go against their very fundamental core of humanity. Our soldiers are just copying their leaders and fulfilling their training which dehumanizes them and the "enemy." Violent is as violent does.

However, I believe that using violence is not like opening a Pandora's Box where the evil escapes and cannot be stuffed back in. Violence is a cycle that can be broken. Violence is like that proverbial can of worms: which slither and roil, but any 2 year old with basic motor skills can control the can of worms and put the lid back on.

I often have to ask myself why we, as Americans, so blindly follow our leaders down this path of violent destruction, and it has always been so. From the genocide and virtual extinction of our native population to dehumanizing black people so that they could be used as human chattel and still be oppressed, even today, to still be the only so-called "civilized nation" that executes people. Why do we allow our leaders to kill and oppress people in our names? Is it so we won't have to look at our own destructive behavior?

Before we can change the world, we have to look in our hearts and change ourselves.

When and only when we frown; protest; yes, demand that our leaders quit committing acts of violence on our heart family members and change our own personal wasteful lifestyles violence will stop and then we will have something to live for: a hopeful future.

Full story here.