Making the world safe
I don’t feel safe in this world, and I’m not alone. People I know increasingly talk about feeling scared because of what they see happening in the world and in our nation.
- President Bush tells India we will support their development of nuclear weapons and then tells Pakistan we will not. And, of course, he threatens Iran with military intervention if they even pursue what they insist are civilian purposes for nuclear energy.
- The Pentagon continues to imprison detainees in Guatanamo and in Afghanistan, at least, without any charges. And the administration insists it has a right to authorize physical and emotional abuse of those detainees.
- Public school teachers have been told to not use their classrooms as a place to engage their students in open discussion about whether or not the current policies and actions of our government are good or acceptable.
- Some of the tax collection powers of the Internal Revenue Service are about to be outsourced to private companies which would not be constrained by the same laws as IRS agents in managing information about citizens.
What can we do?
- We can pray. If we believe that God listens to people who are in need and acts with compassion and power according to those needs, then we can pray with confidence.
- We can learn. We can read alternative news and commentary on such websites as Truthout and Common Dreams. Find out what the mainsteam news media are not telling us.
- We can act. We can write or call our U.S. senators and representatives regularly to challenge decisions we believe will endanger our nation and our world even more. We can write letters to the editor. We can organize information nights in our homes or churches or community groups and invite speakers who are well-informed on these issues. We can organize peaceful demonstrations to more publicly emphasize the importance of what’s happening. And we can participate in the democratic process of electing people to national office who share our concerns and our values.
