Two recent Facebook posts about the recent terrorist attacks in Orlando and Tel Aviv:
Its all crazy. To murder like that for no real reason.
There are people .. who are pure insane it seemsIt makes me sad, too. I feel so helpless. How will we ever fix all these problems that just keep getting worse. This world is so messed up. It’s so disheartening.
The Cause of Violence? It seems appropriate
Violence, to the terrorists, seemed appropriate, even good. Sometimes we blame their trainers and leaders. But training and motivating the perpetrators seemed appropriate to them, even good.
Some people blame the US and President Bush. Bush thought he was “the decider” and didn’t need to govern responsibly and with judgement. He thought he could delegate responsibility. Many see the rise of ISIS as caused by his power-intoxicated Republican cohorts when they decided they could not only topple Saddam Hussein, but take over all of Iraq.
Make violence seem inappropriate
The answer is simple. Make violence seem inappropriate.
To simpletons, this means striking back. But to the terrorists, fighting back just makes violence look more appropriate. It confirms their view, hardens their resolve and can even make them more desperate.
Be adult. Clean up the mess.
The real answer is harder. It starts with cleaning up the mess created by our trillions of dollars of war. But it doesn’t stop there.
What we did was ignite a powder keg. Poverty, suffering and suppression created the explosive situation, and those still exist. It exists in European Moslem communities as well as in the Middle East. Plus elsewhere. Cleaning up much of that is needed, too.
Part of the answer may continue to be military participation and withstanding years of violence. I don’t know. But the key is ending poverty and suffering. At the same time, we better end global warming, or the suffering will increase.
We can do all these things. We know what it takes. Investment and putting people to work, working together and communication. Ending poverty takes education, especially educating women. But this has a side-effect- it lowers population growth, and then lowers the population.
So we’d have to reign in our greedy corporations that insist that growth is the only solution. We’ll need to consciously work together to create a new culture, a new world.
Luckily, a way to do that is almost at hand. Join us, at PeopleCount.org. Add your name to our mailing list. Even better: donate as well.