Pax Gaea Human Rights World Post

Peace, love and... bombs?

So, I found myself in a conversation with an old friend the other day. She called because she was a bit concerned that I had gone off the grid these last few years. For anyone who knows me, that in itself isn't so unusual. I am an obsessive individual and prone to dwelling intensely on whatever is fascinating me at that moment.

What concerned her was the obvious change of life I had undergone since throwing in the towel on my radio career back in 2006. When I moved the family to Mexico for 9 months, many assumed I would eventually return to Wilmington to resume my profession. Rather, I relocated to the Outer Banks and briefly returned to radio while doing the things a man does to shop a very large work of historical fiction.

I've always been proud of my service in the Marine Corps even though that seems like a lifetime ago. Never would I have imagined, some 20 years later that there would be a civilian application for my very specialized training. My friend knew of my military past but also know how vocal I had been in my opposition to the invasion of Iraq. She wondered, as I had ventured down this new "Pax Gaea" path, how was I reconciling that with my very martial, warrior-centric career?

Truthfully, I find no contradiction whatsoever. I am still a devoted advocate for peace. My dedication to promoting human rights, civil liberties and, yes even religious freedom (though I am evangelically humanistic) goes without question. My politics are decidedly liberal and progressive and my economic theories are quasi-socialists while my social ideals are exceedingly libertarian. These aspects of me have not changed in the least. Even my opposition to the War in Iraq persists.

What has changed is really not so much a revision of my viewpoint as much as a revival. I am still a jealous advocate of peace and a bottomless well of love for mankind. Yet I fail to understand how disconnected most people are to the world they live in and disenchanted with the seeming obtuseness of the average American. My former industry continues to traffic in the spewing of poisonous right wing bile, euphemistically called talk radio. Apparently stoking the fear of 50 something white male Luddites is one of the few remaining profit centers to be found in radio. I wish I could mourn the speeding demise of my former media but broadcasting is a victim of its own stupidity and shortsightedness. A decade ago it had the opportunity to outright own the internet as the rising communication, music and entertainment platform but it refused to invest the necessary tens of millions that are today yielding hundreds of billions of dollars for much wiser entrepreneurs.

One truly disconcerting reality is the rebirth of the right-wing militia movement. It was fascinating how those camouflage clad pretend soldiers scurried like rats into hiding after Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. No one of these brave "patriots" muttered a word when the PATRIOT ACT passed during the Bush Administration. But, Gaea help us, a politically moderate, mixed raced, constitutional scholar become president and every white, right wing fanatic comes out of the woodwork. In the last year there has been a run on gun and ammunition purchases as the NRA and the right wing propagandists stoke undereducated, disenfranchised middle aged men and women into a lather of fear that the government is coming for their guns. And yet, not a single piece of legislation has been introduced by the left to limit gun purchases.

These small minded, fear driven people hate my president. I may not always agree with his very wishy-washy middle-of-the-road policy approaches. I may have moments when I sense that he is just another corporatist wolf in progressive sheep's attire. But, ultimately, he is my president and I am proud of him and what he says about the potential of my country. He is my commander-in-chief and I take pride in the fact that I'm helping train the men and women he commands and who protect and defend the constitution we were so quick to bargain away on September 12.

I will continue to speak out for human rights and fundamental freedoms that come, not from a piece of paper or an allusive cloud dwelling being, but by virtue of our evolutionary achievement. I will continue to diligently strive for peace but preach self-defense to both my fellow American and every man, woman and child who lives under the lash of despotism. I will hope that reasonable men can meet and sincerely entreat on behalf of not only their tribe and nation but for all of mankind as well.

But I'm skeptical and cynical enough to realize that, despite my Utopian aspirations, lesser men and women haunt the halls of power and the temples of commerce with only selfish desires. It is for this reason I encourage men and women of conscience to work for peace but train for conflict. If more liberals and progressives could be compelled to serve their nation, people of great mental capacity and education couple their mental capacity coupled with martial expertise, then, and only then could we grind the machine of war and conflict to a screeching halt.

So, that's what I've been doing with my time off the grid. What have you been doing?

Labels: Marine Corps, peace, radio

posted by Dave Carroll @ 3/03/2010 08:43:00 PM