IN THIS TIME of snipers and war drums, military build-ups and sinking stock markets, the world has become a difficult place to find hope. The news uses word peace only to quote an official justifying war. The days of relative peace and international cooperation have given way to world tensions, fractured alliances and the cowboy corralling of our American people. Our president is saying the same thing over and over again, breaking our will to resist, pecking away at our inclinations to question the facts. Corporate crooks are cooking the books. The public is informing itself at the mercy of consumer media. Pollution is progressing and the wild is shrinking and dying. We all know of these tragedies and more. So, where is the movement? Why haven’t we stood up and said, what is going on?

Noam Comsky is quoted as saying, “Any state has a primary enemy: its own population. If politics begin to break out inside your own country and the population starts getting active, all kinds of horrible things can happen-so you have to keep the population quiescent(sluggish) and obedient and passive, and international conflict is the best way of doing that”.

If this is true, it is working. If it isn’t true, well why are we so obedient and quiescent and passive? More importantly what can we do to break these chains?

It is going to take our courage and our wits, our critical thinking and our active participation. It’s going to take faith and organization, it’s going to mean speaking out and believing in what you know is right. It is going to take using democracy with passion. That means giving up your apathy and realizing your ability to change things. That means not selling out or skipping out. That means talking about it even if it feels uncomfortable. It will take all that and more to save this ugly world. Are you up for it?