America's reputation has suffered in recent years because of a series of fateful misjudgments. To bring it back will take hard work, but the task is not impossible. During the terrible tsunami following Christmas Day 2004, even after the worldwide condemnation of our pre-emptive war in Iraq, America redeemed itself in the eyes of the world, if only for a moment, because of our prompt humanitarian response to the crisis. I thought to myself at the time: "If only we were doing more of that helping people!" Imagine if, over the past half-century, America had spent as much on promoting and preparing for peace as it has on its bloated, oversized military budget! Imagine if these vast resources and sums, and the creative energies of our best minds, had gone to fund an "army of peace" instead of overthrowing and undermining governments all over the planet, or bombing millions of simple peasant people back into the Stone Ages. I guarantee you the world would be a quite different place. We might even be so admired and respected, the strength of our character and goodwill so unimpeachable, and our people held in such high esteem in every corner of the globe that the favorable opinion of the international community would almost guarantee their loyalty and unanimous support for any action we wished to undertake.
Uganda RPCV Edward P. Fisher writes: Remember those who dared imagine a peaceful world
My View: Remember those who dared imagine a peaceful world
By Edward P. Fisher
March 07, 2007
Imagine a world, very different from the one we live in today, where religious differences and national interests no longer divide us into warring camps, where materialism and greed no longer torment and drive us, where hunger has been erased from the faces of starving children and where peace, brotherhood and goodwill govern all human affairs.
When John Lennon invited us to imagine such a world, many people thought him naive a dreamer. Some people refused to listen to his music any more because they felt his lyrics encouraged a kind of "atheism," and one local disc jockey actually offered this commentary after playing "Imagine" on the radio: "A lot of people thought it was weird ... because here's one of the richer guys in show business you know, not too shabby plugging communism ... kind of ironic ..."
A lot has changed in America since that tragic day in Dallas, now more than 40 years ago, when the music died. For somebody like me, who lived through those times, I can still hear that clarion clear voice, and these famous words from the Kennedy inaugural: "Now the trumpet summons us to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself ..."
Many who heard those words have forgotten, and others will never know, how great it felt to be an American in those days. I can tell you those were exciting times, full of danger and challenge, risk and anticipation, but, honestly I never felt more alive, never believed in my country and the good it could do more and was never more inspired by and proud of the high-minded qualities of its leaders.
Unfortunately, however, the days of "the Ugly American" are back, and average citizens like you and me are becoming painfully aware of the fact that our corporate culture of greed is not always something to be glorified that its excesses and pitiless ethos tend to exploit and marginalize the poor, the undereducated and the racially disenfranchised in other words, most of the people of the world.
After the catastrophe and upheaval of World War II, and especially after the apocalyptic dread that the Atomic Age ushered in, almost everyone understood we had to put an end to war before it put an end to us. President Kennedy struck a chord among the young when he called on them to imagine an "army of peace" a Peace Corps. He understood that the universal dream of peace was not impossible but, in the final analysis, a technical problem requiring rigorous experimentation and vigorous practical application.
America's reputation has suffered in recent years because of a series of fateful misjudgments. To bring it back will take hard work, but the task is not impossible. During the terrible tsunami following Christmas Day 2004, even after the worldwide condemnation of our pre-emptive war in Iraq, America redeemed itself in the eyes of the world, if only for a moment, because of our prompt humanitarian response to the crisis.
I thought to myself at the time: "If only we were doing more of that helping people!" Imagine if, over the past half-century, America had spent as much on promoting and preparing for peace as it has on its bloated, oversized military budget!
Imagine if these vast resources and sums, and the creative energies of our best minds, had gone to fund an "army of peace" instead of overthrowing and undermining governments all over the planet, or bombing millions of simple peasant people back into the Stone Ages. I guarantee you the world would be a quite different place.
We might even be so admired and respected, the strength of our character and goodwill so unimpeachable, and our people held in such high esteem in every corner of the globe that the favorable opinion of the international community would almost guarantee their loyalty and unanimous support for any action we wished to undertake.
Our Founders warned us about the dangers of maintaining a standing army back when the country was just getting started. Maybe if we were a more truly peace-loving nation, we wouldn't need one!
Edward P. Fisher lives in Pine Bush. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda from 1969-72.
