Yesterday was memorial day in America. A day off.
Shouldn’t the goal be to end this holiday? To make it irrelevant? “If you want peace,” the bumper sticker used to say, “work for justice.”
Imagine if we were serious about care-taking for the earth? If you could not buy anything wrapped in plastic at the supermarket, say?
Or if any shooting by any police officer of any person led to a nationwide review of how we enforce the law on the streets?
Imagine if gun owners were ashamed of what their tools do.
What if politicians had to send their kids to public schools and use public health care? What if the most you could ever earn as an elected official was the median income of the country? Or if we simply selected our officials randomly?
Consider a country where gerrymandering is not a thing, we separate church from state and consider all people equal—especially before the law—whatever their income or genitalia.
Currently, we are sending weapons to Iraq, and American soldiers are stationed around the world (though not so much in Suidan) and maybe that is the way it has to be.
But the route to fewer wars is a country with more justice, not another parade.