Support
Ask your question
Search
Visual Collection
Popular Questions
- Why don't schools teach us to form our... latest post by Inkingi | 35 responses
- What is the most meaningful sentence y... latest post by MicrowaveMetal | 125 responses
- Do you still believe in the things you... latest post by scathey1 | 12 responses
- Is organized religion the root of all ... latest post by ukdirector | 217 responses
- Will human beings really ever understa... latest post by ukdirector | 59 responses
Popular Topics
Most active users
- Thai sean 1350 posts | member since Nov 11, 2007
- thedoc 1402 posts | member since Sep 10, 2006
- pensivetwirl 8 posts | member since Jul 10, 2012
- Elle15 7 posts | member since Mar 8, 2013
- mansi1511 12 posts | member since Apr 14, 2011
| war (1 response) | by thedoc | 1 vote | 
|
 
Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: People do this, they did it in history. A lot of people gave their voices against Vietnam wars, and the revolt stop of America “stop the war”. And there are a lot of other cases. There is a lot of people were not inert and so “I don’t care, it doesn’t touch me, my life is ok, and I have everything: food, a house, a happy life. Why should I trouble myself and go and speak about thousands of burned or killed people or children. I have my quiet life. People should care about their spiritual development; they must grow in their minds and souls. And if everybody gives his voice for freedom [peace], there would be no wars at all. People cannot stay indifferent. We all are parts of a whole. We should understand this, and with this understanding go and give our voices against war. And the government has to stop the wars. |
Abbas Beydoun: I think it is very complex issue, so I do not know how we can do that. |
Alvaro Restrepo: This question includes a big [] in the sense that war is something inherent of life and of our planet. I think that we should only intervene if we want to influence our governments in order to find other solutions of conflicts. And only a strong and organized civil society can put a government under pressure so that they propose other alternatives. One of the biggest problem is a state of not declarated civil war because it is maybe on of the most painful wars, like e. g. in my country. But I think that all wars are civil wars. All wars are happening between human beings, between the same species. But the interests in one country that obligate human beings to fight against each other can only be achieved if there is a very strong society that opposes itself against that form of fratricide. As I said all wars are fratricides. All wars are like this. |
|
by Ana Lucy Bengochea | 0 votes |
|
Andries Botha: Glen, I'm going to be speaking to someone from South Africa. Well, the way I see it, anyway, the governments need us to go to war for them. The only way we can stop them from going to war is by refusing to go for them. Certainly that’s one way of doing it. The second way of doing it is to develop a lobby, an internal lobby, questioning why it is necessary for us to have a defense force, why is it necessary for there to be a defense force in Africa. I mean, who is it that we are defending ourselves from. I mean, is it to be Zimbabwe? I mean, who is America wanting to defend itself from. What is more important, it’s not about defending ourselves from anyone other than ourselves. War, and the instrument of war, is a necessary uncivilry to individuals who have indeed lost the ability to negotiate reasonableness. So, I think, the question is is that we go to war, you, me, us; governments don’t go to war. Governments send us to war. We pay the price. And the price that we pay is not only physical. The price that we pay is psychic. We lose our moral groundedness. We lose ourselves. That’s who goes to war. So we should decide not to do this. That’s the only way that we can change it. And we should also understand by not going we may have to pay a price for not doing that. But if you go to war you lose yourself anyway. So you might as well lose it for a reasonable, a higher purpose. |
Angaangaq Lyberth: Not allowing them to go to war. That’s how we stop them. No government, no government and it’s not matter who they are and where they come from, have the right to go to war for any reasons. So when one particular country in an oppressed situation, that oppressor should be removed not the people being killed. You and I we have no right to kill anybody. That a life given to us by the Creator. Nobody and I say nobody has a right to remove any life anywhere. So it does not matter what kind of government, it does not matter where it is, it doesn’t matter when, but they should not, and they have no right to take you to war. I hope I answered your question. It is your responsibility as it is mine to stop our governments to do any act of killing of a human being anywhere else. Thank you. |
Anthony Arnove: I think the question of how do we stop governments from going to war raises the question of who has the political power to affect government policy, who has the power to affect decisions of who is going to war. And there, I think we have to look at the role that working people can pay in confronting an empire, confronting the military/industrial complex. Because, ultimately, war relies first of all on the manufacture of the ammunitions in a war and those ammunitions cannot be manufactured if the workers in the war industries refuse to manufacture those ammunitions. And then, they also rely on people to carry out the actions of going to war, rely on soldiers, rely on troops to fight wars of profit, an empire. And the real power of stopping war ultimately lies with the working-class people, who in the industries of war and outside of the industries of war can organize to break down the institutions that drive us to war. They can refuse the orders to fire, they can refuse to ship ammunitions, they can refuse to fund the purchase of ammunitions, they can refuse to support the politicians that take us to war. |
Anuradha Koirala: I think we can stop our government from going into war by voting or choosing dedicated and devoted person who can really think about his country, choosing correct leader, correct leader. [inaudible] |
Anuradha Mittal: Well, when we saw the aggression in Iraq started with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, millions of people marched around the world to the extent that even New York Times and Kofi Annan called this anti-war movement or actually the peace movement, basically the other superpower. And this superpower in some ways, one could say, did not stop the war. But at the same time, when millions of people marched on the day in February, we sent a very clear signal that this war is not just, that this war does not have the approval of humanity. It is an unjust war, it’s an act of aggression, it’s an immoral invasion and today an immoral colonization of a country. But in terms of other ways that we can also stop the war not just by taking away the credibility, we have to gain over the credibility from the Bush administrations by denouncing its actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq. But we do know that war has become a way of oiling the wheels of this economic system, which -- the invasion of Iraq is really about the interest of the Bush administration. And I feel one way to deal with it is also through a preemptive strike. No, I am not talking about Bush’s idea of a preemptive strike; but if it is the way to grease the wheels of an economic system, what if each one of use refuse to go to work that day? What if we bring the economy to a standstill? What if teachers say we will not be teaching in the classrooms, but we will be out in the streets with our children, with the school students? That can say no to this war. What if the people who run the railways say, “Well, no train is going to move which is going to allow further movement of goods?” What if the truckers say that no truck is going to cross the border till this war stops? What if our soldiers walk away saying, “We will not fight this unjust war.” So I feel like what we have to do is launch a preemptive strike around the world when the powers and the superpowers decide that they want to go and launch war so that they can continue and build their empires further. |
Ashok Gangadean: This question of we, how do we stop our governments-- in democracy ostensibly, there is power to the people and people do have power. Individuals have great power, as we’ve witnessed by individuals like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, His Holiness Dalai Lama. Individuals – powerful individuals who speak from their individual power and can really in conscientious objections stand out and speak out. So, when we recognize the enormous power of true individuals, awakened individuals who understand our deep connectivity with reality and the power each of us has, clearly people-power, standing together in connectivity can stand up to governments and confront and make a difference to the governments of runaway policies that enter into war. We can see this in the United States today. That we have entered to a war in response to so-called terrorism. And there are many people, not only in USA but around the world, who find this war objectionable, unjust and ill-founded and ill-conceived. And not the way to go, not the way of the future, it’s not going to solve the problem. So, that this is the question before us, in terms of can people stop a government from going to war. I think history has shown that we can and now we recognize that we must. People must come together and use people-power, not only within countries but across the borders. As citizens over this planet unite and discover our collective powers across all borders, there will have to be an intervention to stop governments from continuing war. And when we talk about departments of peace, there is talk now about seriously forming departments of peace, powerful UN that really has teeth and power to intervene in this way. We will have forces to really confront governments, runaway governments, and put an end to government initiating wars and continuing through wars. |
Audrey Kitagawa: As responsible global citizens, we really have to understand the commitment of our governments to war. For example, how is your government committing your tax dollars, to the mechanisms and machineries of war or to education, to public health? And, for example, in the United States, we have a disproportionate amount of our tax dollars going into our defense budget, and for 2007, we have allocated approximately $260 billion for our defense budget. And it comprises over 50 percent of our entire budget, whereas the funds that we have committed for education and for public health issues are substantially less, so it gives our government the huge capability to be able to go to war, fund war, and promote war. So we really need to look at the commitment of the government and the responsibility of the citizens to really understand how government is functioning and whether or not we are supporting the political leaders that promote war. And it also is incumbent upon the citizens to utilize the power of their vote and to be educated voters as to who they are putting into office and really study the platforms of the leaders that we put into office, and to see what their commitments are -- to peace or to war. And to see where their values lie as to how they would commit our tax dollars, where they would commit our tax dollars. So we have to be responsible to stop war at its very inception, and not promote the [audio ends]. |
Avi Primor: It is quite an interesting fact that there has never been a war between two democracies. One can think about it for a long time and try to find some counter evidence, but there has been no war between two democracies. There have been wars between two dictatorships, or between a dictatorship and a democracy, but never between two democracies. That means we need democracy. This is a means to avoid war. But why have there been no wars between democracies? Because democracies are influenced by the puplic opinion. And the public does not want war. The public opinion in a democracy cannot so easily be influenced by official propaganda as the public in dictatorships. In a democracy where everything is open, where you have freedom of speech, where you can follow the world news, can read newspapers, can listen to opinions, can be of different opinions, it is not easy to create effective propaganda, especially when this propaganda is to lead into a catastrophic war. That is why the population in democracies is able to prevent wars, and why it has been impossible for two democracies to wage war against each other. Thus, if we have really democratic governments, and this only depends on us, we will probably be able to prevent war. by Avi Primor |
Benjamin Fahrer: The government should be a representation of the people. If we don’t want go war; our government shouldn’t go to war. In America, there was a complete suppression, a complete dilution of the people. A complete takeover of what people believed we are going to work for; by the media, by many different organizations, and by our government, the media, campaigns, the military. So people weren't necessarily in opposition, actually believed that we were going to work for a reason that needed to be going to work for. So, the voice that was spoke out to the government in protests and demonstration, were thought of as the minority. And yet truly, if the truth of the cause for the war, of why we’re doing the things we’re doing, was available to all. It would not be the minority, it will be the majority. And this is what the government should represent. The government should represent the majority of the people and therefore the majority of the people want to go to war, the government will go to war. If they don’t want to go to war they won’t go to war. How can we stop our government? By having a true representative government, and if you have a problem that should be a part of the solution, part of the solution. |
Benson Venegas: This is a very interesting question. There's always a feeling that is almost impossible to stop our governments to go to - from war. But I think the answer, we, you, as the general public, you have the answer. Because we are the one who decide, with our suffrage, who is gonna be your leaders. And I think the answer we can find it in history if we go back to the Ancient Greek times, when for you to become to be a politician, was a sense or issue of value. The values of justice and truth. It was an honor. You become to be a politician because of honor, and not because of power, or because of economics. So I think we have the right now to really insure our leaders, to have the proper leaders that can really take humanity in the right direction. That's what we need to stop our governments from going to war. Have better leaders. Leaders - visionary leaders that really can see that peace and justice are a big - are very important conditions for economic growth, and economic wealth, and to have peace and harmony around the world. |
|
Currently video only.
|
by Bianca Jagger | 0 votes |
|
Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon. |
postings
