The Power We Have and How We Can Use It

Dear readers, there is a power in each one of us that we must not abandon or fail to use.  It's our conscience, our sense of decency, morality, and kindness that most people in the world share.

The president of my country has taken us to war – without our consent, and with rude disregard for both the spirit and the letter of our constitution.

But it's worse than that.  It's worse than the damage to infrastructure and shipping that will lead to an oil crisis, not just here in the U.S. or in Europe, but in China, India, South Korea, Japan, and other eastern nations.  It's worse than the possibility of global recession.

Absolutely not a game

The words and actions of the leaders of my country have alienated our long-time allies and made us hated around the world.  It's horrifying to realize that we may deserve this.

While Iranian families were burying their children, the White House posted a spliced video of American football players tackling each other alongside footage of air strikes that were killing people, and captioned it "Touchdown."

When critics objected, they were told they lacked toughness, patriotism, or a sense of humor.  I failed to see the humor.

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago made a strong statement denouncing the "gamifying" of war, which treats the "suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it's just another piece of content to be swiped through while we're waiting in line at the grocery store."

All wars ask us to demonize the enemy and think of him not as someone like us, not an actual person, but as an evil being who will harm us if we don't harm him first.  And of course, the enemy will cause us harm, because he's been taught to think the same way.

But our leaders are asking us to be thrilled by our destructive capability.  They're asking us to celebrate the power of our military, and to view these events like a game we're winning.  We're supposed to be screaming, "Go team!"  It's sickening.

We're better than that... aren't we?

We have a choice.

Our behavior is like a mirror, an echo, a boomerang – what we give is what we get.  Shout at someone or give them the finger in traffic, and you can be sure that they or someone else will do the same to you.  Smile and wave, and you'll get the same response back, even from a stranger.

Kindness and nastiness are both contagious.  We get to choose the atmosphere we live in.  Here's how Jack Kerouac explains it:

Practice kindness all day to everybody, and you will realize you're already in heaven.

The opposite is also true.

It's easy to feel helpless, to do no more than denounce and complain.  How else can I respond to what the leaders of my country are arrogantly, stupidly, soullessly doing?

But I do have power to influence the world around me, and I needn't wait for a political group or leader to make the right move.  Acts of kindness can have an effect like ripples in a pond.

We must not abandon or fail to use our powers of conscience, decency, morality, and kindness.

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