What is your recipe for world peace?

At least two things need to start happening simultaneously. First, a freeze on military build-up with the idea in mind that there will be a future disarmament. It is rarely groups of peoples that want war. it's a selcet few we call governments that provoke it, and rarely for good reasons.

Secondly, there needs to be a global effort to not only end poverty, but to educate the world citizens. This effort needs to start on our own shores, beginning with the ceasing of hostilities in the Middle East. We can spend $4000 per second better elsewhere. Namely, retooling Americas infrastructure, which includes school buildings and teacher salaries.

Obviously to "compete" in the world market place, we need graduates of higher education. So I think that high school grads be required to spend a year in their respective state National Guard. This fulfills the Consituttional purpose of providing for the common defense. After that, they then need to spend two years in the Peace Corp. After said three years they have the choice of keeping their military firearms, fulfilling trhe Second Amendment, and then they have a free ride for the rest of the time they choose to go to school. They served their country, and they served their planet.

Meanwhile, as we prepare this new generation for higher ed and again developing a brain pool to draw soultions to our problems from, we put to work any unemployed people retooling the infrastructure of America. The list the American Society of Civil Engineers has could easily employ those people. That would prepare our infractrucure for renewed investment by corporations.

Legislatively, there needs to be single payer universal health care and living wage laws. No tax breaks for large corporations nor subsidies for large businesses. If the conservative concept of welfare recipients pulling themselves up by their bootstraps has any merit, it also fits wealthy corporations and sports teams and owners.

This can be started by, ugh, listening to commercial radio. Reflect for a second on how long ago it was that organic food was not available in a local grocery store. But because people asked for it, now look at it. The same is true with commercials. We need to start challenging the status quo when it comes to capitalist materialism and what drives it. Here where I live I have contacted two radio stations about ads I find ethically irresponsible. One was an ad by a plastic surgeon that inferred that face lifts and botox are natural. Yea, right. Second was an ad by a prominent motorcyle manufacturer promoted contest that ended with the line, "He who dies with the most toys wins." Neither of those ads fit into the world peace agenda because they promote the very thing that keeps us stuck in the place we are right now.

So I dissented.

The other thing to do is discuss concrete ideas with your friends, and put them in words in blogs and letters to editors. The flow of ideas historically took almost a century to filter down to the masses. Now it is quite condensed thanks to the 'net. However, even dyed-in-the-wool lefties and liberals will have to face difficult choices to move to an agenda of world peace. Otherwise their elected representatives wouldn't be supporting the current hostilities in the Middle east.

The change begins with us. World peace starts with us letting go of ego, anger, hate, bigotry, and embracing love. Not as new age platitudes which many lefties do. The real work of doing so means working through conflict, not pretending it isn't there. It also means that we need to revist the principles that our country was founded on and deciding whether or not we want to live by them. A world of justice, equality, general welfare, and domestic tranquility.

For some odd reason, a world moving in that direction wouldn't need a military presence.However, the Constitution of our country states we provide for the defense of the common, which I guess could mean even against the dangers of natural disasters. But the huge military expenditures of this world could be scaled back significantly and those resources utilized elsewhere. I haven't quite fleshed this out entirely, but as a nation, we can lead on this one.

There's my two cents worth.