Indeed, the conditioning is to look only at what others are doing, and to desire at any cost to emulate that which is being sold. This is the agenda of all who work and live in fear. It can indeed be overcome, and in fact it can be completely avoided, by simply being true to one*self. This is my experience as never have i paid any creed to the Soft*Sell, never have i not known the beauty, grace and reality of peace.

Each small step resolves each small conflict, until all is at peace.

BL*M

The 13-Establishments of Truth

There's an awful lot of truth in that! I would suggest though that many of our fellow citizens are ignorant of the true nature of their actions. They are conditioned not to look at what they are doing.

It's interesting that this thread began with an essay about "creating a more enlightened Right" - which essay I found to be a monument to passive-aggressive partisan misbehavior. No further comment on that! Instead, I want to point out that it has morphed into a thread about creating a more peaceful world, which I find far more worthwhile. Also that the impetus for all these very positive thoughts was our friend markmulligan's cynical pessimism. For that we may be grateful!

The same kinds of opportunities to offer a positive vision of peacemaking are in front of us all the time, if we are willing to open our eyes to them. I participate in a discussion board hosted by my local newspaper. Naturally, there are many cynical, arch-Conservative screeds, as well as knee-jerk Librul Whines. But with persistence, it is possible to bring a sizable majority of regular posters to agree that decent, honorable people can be found at points all over the political spectrum, and that the real enemy of our nation is our alienation from one another.

It may seem like a very small step, and perhaps it is. But when I look at how our nation has come to be perceived by almost all of its citizens as "on the wrong" track, I see this alienation from one another as part of the "Soft*Sell" conditioning that Rainbow Brain writes about, the kind of conditioning that takes away our power to create a more peaceful existence. I know from my own experience that it can be overcome, and that as a result, some small amount of conflict is resolved, and peace is brought into being.

Steve

=========

Our lives begin to end the moment that we become silent about things that matter. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

* * *
Soft*Sell

Where have all the children gone, long time passing,

Gone to play Warrior, guns and bombs we give them,

Gone to play Pop Star, sex and drugs we push upon them,

Gone to play Sports Hero, with speed and adrenaline we seduce them,

Gone to play Super Model, with fear and loneliness we threaten them,

Gone to play Princess Queen, with fantasy and illusion we dilute them,

Gone to play Movie Star, with scripted reality we desensitize them,

Gone to play Business Tycoon, suites of ego and shinning, armored toys we offer them,

Where have all the adults gone, long time hiding, to wash the blood from their hands, so as not to openly advertise or take responsibility for the world they have created.

The most damming reality of the Soft*Sell in which fear is the base of competition and war is that we knowingly trade our children for the profit and illusion of Idol Worship.

Look behind the illusions, and find Your*Self,

Love what you see, and change for the children.

©Bruce Larson*Moore
The Last*War

1) Victim Offender Mediation (in existence almost 30 years) finds a 32% reduction in recidivism (study of 1300 juveniles)

www.voma.org/docs/connect3.pdf

2) Using Community Conferencing (scripted circle), recidvism reduced by 60% in young offenders compared with comparable juvenile justice cases.

www.communityconferencing.org

3) Using peacemaking circles in a First Nations community in northern Manitoba with adults and juveniles in primarily sexual abuse cases, 41 out of 43 (95%) have not reoffended!

Ross, R. (1996) Returning to the teachings; Exploring aboriginal justice. Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Penguin Canada.

4) Have a look at the work of Azim Khamisa - http://tkf.org/

There are techniques available which have demonstrated results. Part of what is missing is the institutional infrastructure to support them and propagate them. We will soon have that. See The Peace Alliance and The People's Initiative for Departments and Ministries of Peace.

Dear Mark Mulligan

Indeed meditating is not the goal.....the goal is to take the wisdom from ones mediation and use it the other 23 hours of the day to initiate positive change that results in holistic planetary expansion of consciousness.

As you describe yourself as a middle school teacher than you better than anyone should understand that education is an important essence for change. Sadly your profession is most often under paid and neglected by society. If you truly want to disempower the worst then we need to educate & inspire the majority.

Those in the educational system have the potential to initiate change. What has been taught for the last few hundred years one might ask ?... Since so many atrocities continue to occur. Has it been peace or avarice ????

What virtues are being taught and being lived by ?

You ask for institutional change.........educators are the ones who have the opportunity to do just that.

People like Teny Gross of The Institute For The Study And Practice Of Non Violence
http://www.nonviolenceinstitute.org/

and Aaron Voldman, College Director of the Student Peace Alliance
http://www.thepeacealliance.org/content/view/82/37/

are helpingto bring young adults to a brighter consciousness....
.........thus ....Buddhas in action !!!!!

a warm smile

silent lotus

www.silentlotus.net

Let's say one of the great cities of Earth gets wiped off the map in fulfillment of some insane nationalist ambition. Not a possibility, a near-certainty over time among these killer primates.

In horrified reaction, several of the peace movement's current ambitions might be honored. The major powers might introduce Ministries of Peace. The Iraq War might be stopped, unilaterally or otherwise. The Palestinian War, maybe, assuming Jerusalem is not the (likeliest) radioactive crater. People might waste a lot more time perfecting their internal pacification clockwork (see "Can We Be Good?" for my opinion of personal self-perfection as a tool for peace, if you care).

http://peaceworld.freeservers.com/050CANWEBEGOOD.htm

You might be satisfied with these results -- you and the rest of the peace movement ask for nothing much more as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, this would not prevent the next disaster, say, the sterilizing of the NW Pacific seaboard of the USA through some clever act of terrorism. Then I'd be gone too, so I wouldn't have to worry about you gradualists tightening down the screws another twist or two -- which wouldn't avert or even delay the following geo-strategic disaster, and so on.

This does not take into account the drying up of petroleum reserves, which is going to make everybody trigger-happy in ways you cannot imagine but will certainly suffer from.

It is not a question of making good people better, but of disempowering the worst and replacing them with the mediocre majority in such a way that our best potential as humans is multiplied. Personal self-perfection will never get you there. It may help in a peripheral way -- like everything else suggested these days -- but nothing more.

Either we come up with a systemic, holistic and geocultural transformation on a planetary scale, that nearly everyone signs up for, or kiss your asses goodbye. Either we have that plan current, up to date and common knowledge when that first city gets wiped, for the great mass of people to adopt in desperation, or it will only be your trivial palleatives that will be considered.

Kick ass, kiss ass; it's pretty much the same on the Planet Mogadishu you seem to think we can self-perfect ourselves out of -- like Bouddhas sitting lotus position in the middle of Auschwitz: beautiful but futile... Starving babies do not get fed on beautiful sentiment, but by institutional change. Results, please.

My goodness, Silent Lotus, your poetry is beautiful and penetrating. :)

Markmulligan, I recognize and appreciate your passion. There is a vast source of fuel there. The grotesqueness to which you admit is ultimately just a skin that must be looked at squarely, fearless, with acceptance in order to be shed. Navel-gazing is scary, so I can understand the aversion. Our inner demons can seem so much more powerful than any of the world's ills. But we can support this process in each other. We can grow together into a better world. We can build a language that unites rather than divides. Together, let us lift-ass!

Peace to you,
Jason.

Right on, Steve! What struck me about markmulligan's position is how similar it is to that of some "liberals" who won't back programs, candidates, propeace action, etc. unless the "results" are already assured, and whose rhetoric is REaction to the perceived mistakes of the "other."

I'm part of the DoP Campaign, too, and while I won't argue for a minute that it's the only or even the best answer to the development of a Culture of Peace, it's a step along the way and a unifying and empowering movement. Calling it "twaddle" does not serve humanity and only promotes a defensive posture. Come up with a better idea, markmulligan, and I'll jump on the bigger band wagon. I'm looking for empowerment, not castration.

Only after the visionaries (navel-gazers!) have been nurtured, propagated, heard, and understood can we begin to focus on results. And as Jason said, that's what we're doing here. This is the underlying principle of "brainstorming" - putting all ideas on the table without regard to their viability or probability of success. THEN we go back and evaluate.

A parallel situation is that we can't have technological advances without pure science (research). To try to take a shortcut to "results" is to truncate our human potential.

Editor, propeace.net

Dear Mark Mulligan

It is indeed a beautiful path to be a teacher and i appreciate your view
on what you feel is not your purpose in life.
As you choose to express the issue of being a Grand Master
please allow me to offer this poem.

______________________________________________________________

I

One
Babys
Gentle
Breath
Repeats
The one act
Of the giving
And receiving
Of natures being
And from beyond
Every garden wall
Majestic mountains
Appear to the universe
As if they are only teething
And as my awareness of silence grows
i accept to share with the vision
Of the divine which sees over all
And allows me to feel that when
One is humble there is no one
Who is ever small

silent lotus

____________________________________________________

And as you ask ....Now do we understand each other ?.......i hope that one day eveyone will understand everyones point of view even if they do not agree with it.

a warm smile

silent lotus

www.silentlotus.net

Oh*Yes I* have all*ways understood these motivations, I* have seen and learned of the ways of fear and of men who desire to whip*ass, and I* have all*ways won again and again, so there is no need for me* to "want" what is offered by the path of intimidation and ego, my advise is to offer that one should gaze into the mirror of what one say's and does, then apply these things to their own life for "If you don't, You won't.

For One is both the Mirror and the Reflection.

BL*M
The 13-Establishments of Truth

I am struck by the similarities between this discussion and the one just previous, concerning what "our work" is.

What Our Work Is

In the last comment on that thread, silent lotus asked:

I see these unmet needs as the larger, more political goals that are only achievable when vast numbers of people rise up to oppose a particular policy. Focusing on these goals to the exclusion of the more personal, or smaller community goals will inevitably result in frustration and impatience, the kind I would expect an experienced middle-school teacher to be very familiar with: one can present the lessons impeccably, but who can force the students to assimilate them?

I respect and share your desire to focus on results, markmulligan. I suggest that finding inner peace is a valuable result, not at all narcissistic. If we hope to bring peace to others, doesn't it make sense to begin the quest by bringing peace to ourselves?

It might be self-serving to stop at that point, but many of our fellow travelers will not progress beyond serving themselves. So be it. For those who do, they may progress from peace with themselves to peace in their families, reconciling broken relationships, maintaining close and trusted friendships, enjoying and sharing in loving communities. This is all good work, important work in peacemaking, and the results are rightly satisfying. At some point in our development, this work begins to be easy, welcome.

As we acquire skills in peacemaking for ourselves and those close to us, we can begin building bridges to those who are more distant, and dissimilar. This is much more difficult work, because of the acculturated resisitance to cooperation and trust of "the other". Results are much more elusive: many will join in support of, or opposition to, a particular policy only for self-serving reasons.

Lacking the experience of personal, family, and community peacemaking, the endless toil of global peacemaking is bound to be frustrating. It's the wrong end of the journey to begin with. First we must find peace with ourselves and those closest to us. A certain amount of navel-gazing is essential.

Steve

=========

Our lives begin to end the moment that we become silent about things that matter. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

Listen, I would love to cheer what you and yours are doing. I would love to be the avuncular professor, tweedy and profound, who inspires you to new heights of achievement. Unfortunately, I am not that guy. I am the SOB middle school teacher every one of us had and hated, who was never satisfied, never pleased with what we did, who always demanded better of us and never cared what we thought about him or her. A walking nightmare every day we were forced to learn under that teacher. You know who I'm talking about. The teacher that actually molded the adult we would become.

I would love to tell you: little by little, gradual changes, you're doing fine, just continue along your path. I would love to BELONG, to FIT IN, to accept and be accepted. But that is never going to happen. That is not my purpose in life, that was not what I was trained for and that is not the person or the idea you and the peace movement need at this point in time.

I am not satisfied. I am not pleased with what you've accomplished so far -- it's twaddle! I expect and demand much, much more. I do not care what you think of me -- my life has twisted well beyond that expectation. Heed me and grow or ignore me and stagnate. I am the grand master chess champion who will whip your ass for years until you actually learn how to play my game. You do want to learn, don't you; you do want to win, don't you? You won't if you don't.

I am here. I am available. No school board is going to force you to deal with me. You are an adult now; it is strictly your choice.

Now do we understand each other?

Welcome back markmulligan. As always, your point of view and analysis give us much to think about and to comment on. Since you asked, my focus is to build an online community dedicated to a transformation to a culture of peace. I am also involved in the campaign to create a Department of Peace in the U.S. government, which is part of a wider International People's Initiative for Departments and Mininstries of Peace. I'm fairly happy with the results of both of these pursuits so far. Certainly neither is by any means complete. Much remains to be done.

You gave us your analysis but stopped short of describing your results. Can you tell us more about the results you have achieved? Or perhaps the analysis is your result?

In the USA, the ACLU is considered far-left. Now, by definition, the ACLU is the most middle-of-the-road organization one could possibly imagine or create. It will defend anyone from either political extreme: "Come one, come fascist; let all feel welcome!"

You can't get more middle-of-the-road than that; except perhaps for American 'Leftists' as a whole. The ACLU, and by extension, the American Left is a black hole of Centrism that sucks everyone into its vortex. The Far Right is a sulfurous, false-prophet driven (predicting the End-Time is specifically forbidden by Christ) gas giant that swings beyond this black hole and even feeds from it. The closer-orbiting American Left got sucked in and annihilated.

There may be nothing particularly wrong with that; but let's call a spade a spade for a change, OK? No need for standard-issue lies in this sacred forum, right?

In the USA, you are free to support one of the two following groups. No other organized position or opposition is permitted, by the 'freely given' mutual consent of these two groups:

1) Those that perpetuate and glorify Planet Belsen (Dora, actually, since it’s busy perfecting slave-factory weapon systems for the next Armageddon we delude ourselves our dominant weapon managers can avoid – but who among such peacefully grazing sheep and incompetent wolves would recognize such a subtle metaphor?). I suppose you'd call them Rightists. I'd rather call them weapon managers because that is all they do well: manage weapon systems. Absolutely incompetent peace managers, by definition. Our chosen rulers in any case.

2) Those who would rather hand out day-old bagels and bad coffee for free to the detrained at the front entrance of Planet Belsen. You would call such Salvation Army-type enthusiasts Leftists. I'd rather call them weapon dissidents because that is all they know how to do: strengthen, refine and render more subtle their cherished weapon management through their ineffectual dissidence. There’s an unrecognized love/hate co-dependency between these two groups – as with a couple of wine and roses alcoholics in denial of their addiction – but God forbid there'd ever be a breakup!

I see no Left. No one summons us to dismantle Planet Belsen. Noooooo. We're all too Realistik for that! Let's just make it NICER. Let’s end the war in Iraq so that it may flare elsewhere unheeded, as Vietnam morphed into the Cambodian killing fields and no one did nothin’ about it. Let’s just turn randomly chosen spots on Earth into Rwanda and Lebanon at their worst while we feel BETTER about ourselves and clog our arteries with war profits.

Sooner or later, the next random Sarajevo will be your school district. Wake up before the next mortar round comes crashing through your roof. An ounce of prevention, etc...

Feel free to call us whatever you wish; just don't dare use Leftist or progressive or for peace! Not until we've conducted a major overhaul of our primary motives, priorities and prejudices. Until then, we insult Leftist martyrs from the past by associating our pathetic results with their holy sacrifice. Weapon stalwarts, weapon fellow-travelers, weapon dissidents: quite apt and descriptive if somewhat less dignifying. Leftists, progressives, pacifists, Learners: not until we've turned ourselves around. Please get used to this idea, assuming valid results are the goal and not just feeling better about our pathetic selves despite our pathetic results.

In the latter case, the most accurate descriptor would be that of pathological narcissist. This label stings in direct proportion to its suitability. In the case of the SUV-ridden, TV-bidden, Gay Pride or Gay-bashing Americans – obsessed with irrelevant trivia in any case – I am afraid it is 100% accurate. For the time being, there are no holdouts, only weapon fellow-travelers.

Call me insulting, abrasive, antagonistic and paranoid, whatever you wish. I focus on results and nothing else, especially not my navel. My focus is to get no one else's children's skulls split by machete, mortar, nuke or weapon grade fever -- ASAP and ever again. Where, pray, is your focus?

www.peaceworld.freeservers.com