The cognitive dissonance of our every day lives...trying to make sense of it.
In the space of a week....
One of my wife's friends lost her dog to cancer - it was a family member for a long time, it was heart breaking.
Most of us do everything we can to stay healthy. We spend on medicines, supplements, read books, watch videos.
We read the news - whether it is collateral damage from drone strikes, casualties of the many conflicts around the world - pick the area, pick the country - world leaders weigh how this balances out with their own country agendas.
How does one make sense of this? We love our pets, we love our loved ones, we are all taught nothing is more important than life.
There are so many people left behind in our own country - whether it is housing, health care, dental care - food.
We read the news, we recognize that death is everywhere - every death we read about in the news touches and moves and devastates someone, somewhere.
I can't for the life of me make sense out of any of it.....and I realize that it has been this way for - as long as there have been humans, as long as there are conflicts for land, or money, or oil - as long as there is a lust for power, as long as there is greed...
See the sorts of things that tangle my brain as I spend a muggy hour watering my garden?
= new reply since forum marked as read
I am trying to understand a family situation where the only teabagger in the family has power of attorney over an elderly family member and is not acting as the impartial and benevolent caretaker an elder should have as PofA over all matters. The dysfunctions of a teabagger are on display in this narrow sense. Control, judgmentalism, greed, bitterness, and so on.
Where is compassion, tolerance, and generosity with those teabaggers?
The garden is a good place to ponder such things. My cherokee green is coming along fine. 
but there are people advocating a US Dept of Peace... even if we can't be directly involved, at least we can share the vision...
The only way for America to correct the course we are on is to consciously reinvent our national agenda.
We live in a manufactured war economy. That's what's trickling down on us and it stinks.
We need to stop putting up with this stupid warmongering and neglect of our own people. It is total insanity. I don't buy that "there will always be conflict." Conflict can be mitigated with enough political will. Gandhi was up against incredible odds in South Africa and India. Although even India couldn't institute his ideals longterm, Gandhi did create the template for change. We can do it too.
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from Wiki:
"Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced U.S. Department of Peace legislation to Congress in July 2001, two months before the September 11 attacks. Kucinich has reintroduced the legislation every 2 years since. The bill currently has 52 cosponsors. Some of the numerous organizations endorsing the legislation include Amnesty International and the National Organization for Women.
This bill includes several additional proposed mandates that would work in partnership with the U.S. Department of State and go beyond the existing mandates of the United States Institute of Peace. Some highlights among the areas of proposed additional responsibility include:
Provide violence prevention, conflict resolution skills and mediation to America's school children in classrooms as an elective or requirement, providing them with the communication tools they need to express themselves beginning in elementary school through high school.
Provide support and grants for violence prevention programs addressing domestic violence, gang violence, drug- and alcohol-related violence, and the like.
To effectively treat and dismantle gang psychology.
To rehabilitate the prison population.
To build peace making efforts among conflicting cultures both here and abroad.
To support our military with complementary approaches to ending violence.
Monitoring of all domestic arms production, including non-military arms, conventional military arms, and of weapons of mass destruction.
Make expert recommendations on the latest techniques for diplomacy, mediation, conflict resolution to the U.S. President for various strategies.
Assumption of a more proactive level of involvement in the establishment of international dialogues for international conflict resolution (as a cabinet level department).
Establishment of a U.S. Peace Academy, which among other things would train international peace-keepers.
Development of an educational media program to promote nonviolence in the domestic media.
Monitoring of human rights, both domestically and abroad.
Making regular recommendations to the President for the maintenance and improvement of these human rights.
Receiving a timely mandatory advance consultation from the Secretaries of State, and of Defense, prior to any engagement of U.S. troops in any armed conflict with any other nation.
Establishment of a national Peace Day.
Participation by the secretary of peace as a member of the National Security Council.
Expansion of the national Sister City program.
Significant expansion of current Institute of Peace program involvement in educational affairs, in areas such as:
Drug rehabilitation,
Policy reviews concerning crime prevention, punishment, and rehabilitation,
Implementation of violence prevention counseling programs and peer mediation programs in schools,
Also, making recommendations regarding:
Battered women's rights,
Animal rights,
Various other "peace related areas of responsibility".
Proposed funding for a U.S. Department of Peace would initially come from a budget that is defined by the prevention bill as, "at least 1 percent of the proposed federal discretionary budget, FY 2008 of which 53% is already allocated to the Department of Defense (budget)". Whether or not the U.S. Institute of Peace would be promoted to a cabinet level position, is not addressed by this bill.
A growing, national movement of citizens continues to actively promote and lobby for this legislation.
The Peace Alliance is the National Organization spearheading the passage of the legislation."
http://peacealliance.org/
