World Peace on a Shoe-String Budget

 

             Working for world peace is not something that we men have thought much about. Conquering, dividing and colonizing other civilizations and neighborhoods have kept us mighty busy. And we’re very good at it. In fact, if there weren’t any women on the Olympic committee, pillaging and plundering would be Olympic sports.

But now there is some incentive for men to promote world peace—it seems to be a viable alternative to global economic ruin. They figure that this could be accomplished in only one or two decades for as little as eight gazillion dollars and would not interfere with their golf schedules.

Women, on the other hand, if given the power and authority, could create world peace in one afternoon in between working full-time, phone calls, shopping, changing diapers, and cleaning house. Establishing peace is second nature to them—and costs little, if anything.

Take this simple example: when a child comes home from school and tells her father that someone hit her, the father will take on a second job just to pay for karate classes after telling his child, “Don’t you worry. After six months (and twelve hundred dollars) at the best dojo in town, you’ll be able to kick that kid’s butt.” Despite the fact that he and his child came in last in the community’s Thanksgiving potato sack race, he’ll push the poor kid into a mental state of aggression without realizing that the original “hitting” incident was a result of the other child in question accidentally tripping over a Lego.

If the child approaches his mother about such an episode, she will ferret out the truth, explain what an accident is, and then fix some cookies and milk. In a few minutes, the whole thing is over and forgotten. The price? Two dollars and thirty-eight cents—the cost of a good pair of shoelaces. Compare that with the male alternative of twelve hundred bucks—enough to buy the entire inventory of a shoe store in
Bolivia.

The bombing of
Hiroshima is a perfect large-scale example of the masculine mentality at work. Near the end of the Second World War, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan was given the chance for peace via the Potsdam Declaration which was signed by the U.S., Great Britain and China. The Japanese cabinet was leaning toward accepting these terms but, demonstrating that the fragile ego of the male mind is indeed universal, was busy figuring out how to “save face” in the eyes of their people in such a way that the accord would appear to be their idea in the first place. Their response included the word “mokusatsu,” an ambiguous term which can be translated as either “withholding comment” or “ignoring.” The Japanese news agency, Domei, resorted to the latter translation which, in addition to inaccurately representing the sentiments of Prime Minister Suzuki, infuriated the
U.S. leaders who, with their own porcelain egos to protect, decided to nuke them into submission.

If the world were run by women in this same situation, the U.S. President would send the Potsdam Declaration over to the Japanese Prime Ministress with a bouquet of flowers which would include a note asking Her Eminency to sign the document and RSVP regarding a White House celebrity ball featuring live music from Shakira. The Declaration would be signed immediately, although days would be spent deciding what to wear to the event so as not to upstage the entertainment—and mass destruction and genocide would be completely avoided in the process.

What did the male solution cost? Between constructing bombs, building planes, training pilots and buying $3,000 government approved tool kits similar to the ones sold at WalMart for $8.95, the price we paid was billions of dollars and an obscene amount of human casualties. The cost of the women’s solution? An afternoon shopping spree on the Ginza, a round trip plane ticket to
Washington D.C., and nary a casualty—a shoestring budget by anyone’s standards. So let’s give women the reigns of power for a change. In the process of ushering in an era of peace, I’m sure they will demonstrate they can beat men in both price and efficiency, not to mention style.

The Great Divide

The Great Divide

If Evil Knievel tried to jump the economic chasm
      between the rich and the poor,
      he would end up in a puff of smoke
      at the bottom of the canyon where
      the middle class is being interred.
If Harry Houdini tried to break the shackles of oppression
      that tethers the underclass to earth’s crust,
      his audience would throw tomatoes at him.
If Bozo the Clown asked for food for the needy
      his 600 counterparts on Capitol Hill would give him
      the cold shoulder (any way you cook it, it tastes awful)
As the bandwagon of runaway capitalism rushes madly
      toward the precipice of sudden death,
      or, as the media tells it, the horizon of infinite
      opportunity, the performers in this circus pause to discuss
      the breakup of a notable teen couple
      while the fat lady adjusts her sheet music.
Not even Superman can save this sorry bunch,
      for his cape has been recalled,
      his belt can no longer wrap around
      his distended waistline,
      and his X-ray vision prescription
      is no longer covered by his HMO.

© M.Levine 2006

World Peace Demystified

        The term “world peace” has been batted around for decades by well-meaning and hard-working but often clueless dreamers living in a society whose leaders seem to aspire to the opposite. We’re all clueless dreamers of one degree or another, but there is something vague about the words “world peace” that brings out the head-scratching in all of us. Because there are so many different views about world peace, it’s hard to define. Some think of it as merely a laying down of arms while others picture a beatific existence straight out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. And then there is everything else in between those extremes and other concepts outside the “box” altogether.
      The important thing is that we all want world peace, whatever it is, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus as to its definition. Why is it important to define it? How can you work toward something you can’t define? Or at least picture?
      Whether “world peace” will ever share a common definition, one thing is clear—it is not something that is definitive enough to work towards. World peace is, in fact, a byproduct of “unity.” Now there’s a concept we can hang our hats on. Unity suggests the use of awareness, acquiescence, sacrificing for the greater good, cooperation, and many other virtues its condition requires. World peace is really the fruits of unity’s labor.
      Now that we have something more tangible to work towards, how do we attain global unity? We’ve never done that before. Many naysayers point to this fact ignoring every historical moment in the past where we had previously never done something that we finally learned how to do. And there are a lot of them. But creating global unity is a daunting task—maybe the biggest one yet. But is it something to be cynical about, or afraid of?
      Let’s say Adam and Eve were the first humans (which we know they weren’t according to the Bible…and to common sense) and they had an intimate encounter between them…okay, wild and crazy jungle love. If Eve had never seen or heard of another pregnant woman, she might wonder why her belly started to grow. During month nine of her gestation, she might say to her female cave friend, “Something’s in my belly. It’s moving. It’s alive! An alien is taking me over! What did Adam do to me, that prick! (Insert Lorena Bobbit joke here).
      We all know that women know what to expect in the process of giving birth. They know that the outcome is new life and they’re willing to suffer and occasionally die for it. Giving birth to a united world is no different. It’s painful, messy, and a lot of people have died and will die for it, but that’s life. The problem is that many people don’t see the inevitable outcome of the social/ecological havoc that we are wreaking across the earth and its peoples. They somehow think that we are all going to be destroyed or taken over by an evil despot or oligarchy. I think they are playing to many video games or watching American news programs.
      A despot or two or ten cannot stop the force of evolution. Let’s say there is a World War III. The chance of all human life being annihilated is slim. We’re too spread out and too adaptable. Those left will certainly have learned a valuable lesson about the lack of unity and, hence, unity. Those that have died will be at peace, so everyone wins. On the other hand, let’s say a select few try to rule the world. Isn’t that what’s happening now? Don’t we see the elite and powerful teetering on their soapboxes, losing credibility, facing the wrath of the public they try to control? How long do they think they can get away with what they’ve gotten away with so far?
      History offers us hope when cynicism and rationalization fails. Evolution, as we have found out, always progresses. It may take a detour or a step back now and then but it always moves forward toward a higher level of unity. After the caveman came the tribes, then the villages, then towns, cities, states, nations, and tomorrow…THE WORLD!
      One critical question we haven’t asked until now is, “Why don’t we have unity now?” The answer is that we haven’t decided if that’s what we want. Some people either don’t think it’s possible, don’t want it, are too lazy, or just don’t care. Our culture certainly has a lot of distractions hindering our ability to focus on important issues. But in fact, if we want it, and reach a critical mass, we can get it sooner than if we wait for nature to impose it on us.
      This leads us to our first step in achieving world unity. It may be obvious—since I just mentioned it—but it is the most critical step and, fortunately, the easiest: you have to want it. It costs no money nor does it take any effort to want it. It only takes awareness of our higher potential as human beings and our desire to live up towards that potential.
      I’m a firm believer in step-by-step directions. If I had a nickel for every tech support specialist that told me to zap my registry file, defrag my pee-ram, and reconfigure my cache without telling me HOW to do it, I could take that money and replace my whole computer…and the mouse!
      So we now have our first step—to desire world unity—which leads us to our second step: do something about it. See how easy this is becoming? We already have two steps toward creating world unity on the planet! So what do we do about it, you ask? Ah, well there’s the rub. That’s a subject for another essay… or book. I can see the title now! Demystifying World Unity.
     
 Matthew Levine    

Welcome!

This is my first entry in my first weblog. Please read the “About” section for a more detailed description of this site. In the upcoming days and months I hope to get some original, illuminating and relevent discussions going on regarding whipping this planet into shape. Your patience is appreciated for I’m new to this blogging thing. I don’t like to spend my entire life at the computer so I appreciate sites that are distilled, original, and to the point. I hope to create one like this.

Experience you later,
Matthew Levine