...you KNOW what we’re saying … you’re saying it too.
Well, building peace of any/every kind starts with each of us individually.
Wherever else in the real or virtual world we are, we’re all here, in Daily Kos, so that means doing it here.
Do we desire most to only talk about social change, or are we willing to put sweat into a genuine commitment TO change?
If you’re willing, start as small as this: each of us can use the IMPULSE to be violent toward one another here — on small issues or large ones — as a self-signal to STOP, COOL DOWN, think of a calm, rational, substantive reply, and do that instead.
Refuse to buy into divisiveness.
Refuse to believe we only move forward by mowing someone else down.
GO PRACTICE: go to news where ya can’t comment/reply or diary anyway, look for something that provokes you like hell, say out loud, really loud, ”WAIT!!!”, and recall that getting outraged is precisely what the real enemy wants from us. Outrage makes us feel as if anyone we disagree with on even a single thing is a threat to us: an enemy. The real enemy seeks to profit by using against us our feelings even of empathy and grief. The real enemy wants to make us do his work, blunting our rational capacities to make cooperation among us impossible.
True Blue Majority said it best: they’re rage farmers.
Do you consent to being farmed like an animal? Bled by vampires? Diseased by parasites?
No?
Good. Then go find another piece of news that makes you furious, and do that practice again. Say wait loud and say it PROUD: we are stronger individually than all the provocation and lures they can send against us.
...because we have a presidency to win again, we HAVE to because the world may just turn on whether we do or not. The world needs us to win it solid and win it big. Our country sure as hell does. We only can TOGETHER.
And personally, don’t you need that too? Don’t our families and communities too?
I know I’m not the best person at this site to advocate for this. I have to try hard, and still I fail a lot. Everyone like me needs everyone else’s help. So, I’m asking yours.
To be the change we want to see.
...we can only achieve shared goals if we work together….
And Daily Kos is a grassroots all its own. Maybe even a grand experiment.
Maaaany individuals here already know how to rip each other to shreds in the ‘verse, how to make others fear us, how to intimidate, how to silence. And so do hundreds of millions out there. It’s common, it’s banal, it’s pointless.
We can choose instead to be among the shining few who do and teach something better just by doing it: Practice peace to teach peace. Build peace by modeling peace.
Peace is not a possession. It’s not even a “process.” It’s a personal and collective choice of how to BE. ...moment by moment by moment...
A hard choice when we’re lured and tempted otherwise.
Are we capable of the hard stuff? Or are we weaklings led around by the war cries and provocations of the ones who profit from destruction and laugh at the flames.
But we need to fight too? Yes. Fight clean, fight generously, fight fair.
Do it so we practice peace, bring peace, build peace, make peace.
For that, don’t wait.
Don’t worry if you’ve tried before, and had to give up, either.
Start again now. Start now.
Peace be upon us.
Peace be with you.
Ready? ...go..