The peace movement is now officially revived, with demonstrations last Saturday all across the United States and around the world. Personal reports coming in include the small town under 50 people turnout in Chico, Ca, where one creative soul was said to be spinning a black and white yin/yang symbol with the words “good” and “evil” in the opposing yet forever interconnected color zones, to the enourmous Washington D.C. rally with between one and two hundred thousand demonstrators. From D.C., Joshua reports,

“The rally was great–Jesse Jackson spoke, Susan Sarandon the actress, and a great speech by the former attorney general Ramsey Clark. But the best thing was how many people were there and the diversity of the group! CNN said 200,000 were there at one point–the largest anti war demo since the Vietnam war! And the group was all ages, all colors, all classes, all religions, all sorts of liberal to radical ideologies. A group of pro-war types and a rally of about 20 (!) people nearby! oy! So the rally started out marching in this big three mile square of streets around the whitehouse.
As we began (we were at the front) the cops sort of melted back. We got all the way around to our start after an hour and there was still blocks and blocks of people who hadn’t even begun yet! The head met the tail of the demo and as we did we slowed up to watch them pass and a huge cheer went rumbling back through the whole crowd. It was so energizing to see so many people out!”

Now tell me why a terrorist would tell their captives who they plan on executing to duck behind the chairs when the Russian army stormed the building? I thought they had plans to kill everybody should the shooting start. Now try to fit that in your catagories.

The power of fanatical action often comes from devotion to fundamental beliefs. Those who say “I’m not sure” are often scratching their heads while others go on to convert the multitudes, and in the excitement of converting others their own hidden doubts are further assuaged.

Recently that fanatical certainty has again begun to express itself as international violence. “Holy” warriors crashing airplanes into skyscrapers, Bush declaring an ongoing war of good vs. evil according to his own subjective interpretation, and now snipers, exploding malls and discos and buses and people and on and on. We could also add to the list of fundamentalist beliefs the expectation of a profitable return on capital investment which is often invoked to justify withholding life saving supplies such aids medicines from impoverished peoples. A common and now all to acceptable feature of self-righteous certainty is the expendability of others.

It’s easy enough to have an understanding that these fundamental beliefs when tied up with violence are way off the mark, something is very dangerous and wrong, and to feel certain about that. That’s the certainty of criticism, which is realistically about all the critics of the current order have, an expanding list of criticisms. Bush did this, the corporations did that, conspiracies here there and everywhere. That is a start at least, and pehaps if there was more consistency in defining what we believe to be wrong and why, the implied “right” would eventually emerge. Or perhaps we have deconstructed our beliefs and identities to the point that notions of “right” themselves are suspect. We don’t want to have another concept to “defend” against the other concepts. But we do want peace, we want a sustainable environment, we want freedom, we want the people of the world to be fed, we want safety, justice, security, and of course, a prosperity!

So I would like in the spirit of allowing uncertainty to propose a new method, with less emphasis on preaching the next “ism” and a greater focus on subjectively observing the ongoing collective experience of humanity. Once certainty is achieved perception is no longer needed, and in fact it must be supressed as it may upset the preordained conclusions. What if we forgoe having an answer in the spirit of probing the breadth and depth of our human crisis. Yes, perhaps you know what I am referring to, some wiser souls than I have already referred to this new phenomena. They call it “I witness".

Welcome to the planetary council. This forum will be for your inspired communications and somewhat like a loosely structured extended meeting. All members are invited to contribute. Please be kind. Server regulations are no profanity or hate messages or violence. Your creative expression is welcome and appreciated. Let’s make some plans for peace and a positive future. What are your ideas?