Wage Peace!

Jesus Said:

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also..."

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..."


Why is it that we don't take these words seriously?

It is impossible to overcome evil with more evil, violence with violence, Hatred with Hatred.

What is happening now in the 'War on Terror', the War in Iraq, and most recently in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, these are examples of the social law of Reciprocity on a massive scale. That is: What you did to me, I am obligated to repay. If you bless me, I bless you. If you curse me, I curse you.

Terror must be confronted. Evil must be resisted. What was done on September 11th (among thousands of other terror attacks) was evil and cannot be justified.
But the problem is that by striking back, by attacking with military might, we are only drawing ourselves into a cycle of Hatred, violence, and bloodshed. More and more people, by the social law of Reciprocity, are obligated to hate, to strike back, and to even give their own lives to kill others.

Jesus calls us to a higher way. He asks us not to step into that cycle of violence and death. He calls us to act in the opposite spirit, to expose injustice and evil for what it is and let the Truth prevail.

We must send this message to our political leaders. The United States will NEVER prevail in the ‘War on Terror’ as long as we continue to use violence to fight it. It is not cowardly to step away from a fight which benefits no one. But this does not mean abandoning the people which we aim to help.

There is another way: Quit the War. It is far to costly with little benefit to anyone. Take the money which is now spent for military purposes (destruction and death), and give those billions towards rebuilding Iraq, Afghanistan and other war torn countries, as well as towards debt relief and to build infrastructure across the Third World where daily people die of hunger and diseases - all easily treatable given access to food, hospitals, and medicine.

Not only will this have the direct effect of rebuilding and saving lives, but it will also cut away the platform of hatred on which Terror organizations thrive, robbing them of their support and their reasons for vengance.

Send this message: ‘We seek to rebuild and to save, not to kill and destroy. We seek your good just as if it’s our own, because it is.’


Watch this short but powerful film: Wage Peace


"An Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"
-Gandhi

"Almost three thousand people died needlessly and tragically at the World Trade Center on September 11; Ten Thousand Africans die needlessly and tragically every single day - and have died every single day since Sept. 11 - of AIDS, TB, and malaria. We need to keep Sept. 11 in perspective, especially because the ten thousand deaths daily are preventable"

-Jeffrey Sachs, excerpted from his excelent book: 'The End Of Poverty'

Making sense of what senseless really means...

"Fifteen thousand Africans dying each and every day, of preventable, treatable diseases—AIDS, malaria, TB—for lack of drugs that we take for granted.

"This statistic alone makes a fool of the idea many of us hold on to very tightly: the idea of equality. What is happening in Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern, and questions our commitment to that whole concept. Because if we’re honest, there’s no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not in North America, or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept their lives—African lifes—are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth.”

“We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies—but will we be that generation? ...It’s up to us.”


- Bono (U2) from his introduction to 'The End Of Poverty'

Durga Kund - A Varanasi Temple