2. That No Child Should Suffer (One Step Today)

The world doesn’t have to be gore-spattered for any children.

It isn’t right for any three-year-old to know the terror of exploding rockets, mortars, bombs, or IEDs.

It isn’t right for any five-year-old to know the horror of seeing loved ones torn to pieces by weapons of war.

It isn’t right for any seven-year-old to be torn to pieces by weapons of war.

It isn’t even right for any nine-year-old to be beaten at full strength by a full-strength man.

We cannot change the whole world in one step.

We cannot change the horror of machete-wielding mobs hacking in Africa, or gangs mutilating in South America, or airplanes ripping through the United States…

…today.

Each can change the world to the distance of one step by taking one step…

…today.

The journey of a thousand miles does indeed begin with a single step.

One step today, one step tomorrow, one step the day after tomorrow….

Each step along the way can protect one child who might have suffered horror.

And in 2 million steps, each step having helped one child…

We will have walked a thousand miles…

…protected 2 million children…

…and traveled further into stopping the hurt than we can yet imagine.

What other choice is there?

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

1. Terrorism and Conflict…and Solutions

“War on terror”, poverty, epidemics, recession, candidates….

Fighting for fighting’s sake…. Healing.

Stephen Covey

There are important issues to be addressed. Many are already flying around the blogosphere/web/water cooler with increasing urgency. Stephen Covey would counsel us to seek first to understand the other before pressing our own point. That is uncommon wisdom. The marketplace rewards drama. Ratings drive programming; us-vs-them theater brings in revenue.

Us-vs-them is also a lot more fun, if we are to be totally honest. What possible gain do we as a society enjoy by staring at Jerry Springer’s latest “Transgender Nazi Steelworkers Face the WWII Veterans’ Association” episode? Yet millions of eyes glaze over to reruns of such spectacles, while uninsured children suffer without care and global security concerns remain hazy to the average citizen.

Don’t we prefer to naysay, rather than consider? (If you spontaneously said “No”, I would ask you to think about your answer in context of the question.) When a hot issue arises, energy rises likewise in the adversaries…not for a breakthrough solution to the crisis, but to more firmly resist the other. We should harness that energy.

Think about bipolarized “news” programs such as Hannity and Colmes. (No offense, gentlemen, I do watch your show.) These are often little more than verbal tag-team wrestling, in which one host supports a right-leaning or left-leaning guest and the other attacks. Each makes excellent points from its perspective, but the middle ground is as unfriendly as a DMZ. When is the last time such a program ended with consensus? We’d love to see one relieved handshake and, “You know, you’ve really opened my eyes on this issue!” It can’t happen. If consensus rises, ratings fall; sales are close behind.

This forum won’t point out how unbelievably stupid the “other” is (to the left from the right and vice-versa, to the male from the female and vice-versa, to the European from the American and vice-versa, etc.) Rather, it seeks the common ground we too casually ignore. Solutions are to be found in mature dialogue, with all parties capable of listening and conceding within their respective and respectful comfort levels.

Our energy should pool into solution finding, not dissipate into soundbites of pop culture. Instead of hand-wringing between sitcoms over issues of terrorism and its roots, instead of waiting for our weary military to solve the problem by shooting every last one of “them”, instead of evading unpleasant facts (how about the concept of accountability on all sides in every conflict?)…why don’t we wade in and begin to unravel the snarl of hurts and hatreds? The world would call Americans cowboys. Well, let’s cowboy up.

The stakes are high.

Please don’t discount this blog as a bleeding-heart soapbox. I’ve paid my dues over a (more or less) honorable US military career including years as a commando and experience within the intelligence, diplomacy, security, and cultural-linguistic realms. I’ve held both extreme liberal and extreme conservative views during seasons of my life. I’ve lived among foreign nationals in over thirty nations. More importantly, I’ve listened to the best and worst of what they had to say about their view of the world and of “us”. Most importantly, because I listened, I’ve been heard as well.

We have entered the third millennium, all six billion of us together. Remember what they say: “Third time’s a charm!” This might be seen as an unprecedented time in history to develop evolved, human-based conflict resolution.

You never know. We might start an intercontinental grassroots movement that values and incorporates all sorts of dissimilar members into a functional, citizens’ United Nations…global peacemaking from the people up.

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.