28 October 2024

A Terrifying Choice Awaits Us

[Graphic: Future Politics]

By Robert C. Koehler
Source:  CommonWonders

Editor's Note
I share with my friend, Robert Koehler, the feeling that voting is a sacred duty. It is something that I cannot take for granted as I know the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people to make this privilege possible for me. I cannot smear that gift by eschewing it or taking it lightly. Further, if we look at the current state of one of the two major parties becoming a White Christian Nationalist party that is already undermining important rights, then this may be the last vote that I have. 

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Category: 2024 Elections, Autocracy, Dictatorship, Robert C. Koehler | Comments Off on A Terrifying Choice Awaits Us
18 October 2024

War’s Victims Speak the Deepest Truth

welcome to the nuclear war age

[Photo: Ushering another generation into war. Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay]

By Robert C. Koehler
Source:  CommonWonders

Editor's Note
Too many have forgotten the lessons of the nuclear age. Within a one-month period, I have heard threats from Vladimir Putin threatening to unleash his nuclear weapons arsenal; Netanyahu threatening to bomb supposed nuclear sites in Iran (using massive nuclear weapons of the U.S.), that the U.S. retained agreements with Diego Garcia to keep our nuclear port there, and one of the Presidential candidates (Trump) talking about building new nuclear power plants. We are far from giving up nukes – either as weapons or for power generation.

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Category: Robert C. Koehler, War and Conflict, Weapon Systems | Comments Off on War’s Victims Speak the Deepest Truth
25 July 2024

‘Got Any Tennis Balls?’

[Photo: Magadishu]

By Robert C. Koehler
Source:  CommonWonders

Editor's Note
Are humans inherently violent? I don’t think so, though our history would point to that. I don’t believe that any species is inherently violent, evil, or bad. If that is true, then why would humans be different from all others? I have heard an evolutionary argument that humans are human, and have advanced beyond all others because we have opposable thumbs. Those thumbs have allowed us to do all kinds of amazing things in manipulating the world around us. Might the hubris of those having those thumbs affect our perception of the world and each other? Might we think because we can create marvelous things we can do the same with our own species? Might this be the root of our violent history?

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Category: Militarism, Peace, Robert C. Koehler | Comments Off on ‘Got Any Tennis Balls?’
21 April 2024

No One Owns the Future

[Photo: Children in the Middle East protect their ears from the noise of bombs. Kathy Kelly

By Robert C. Koehler
Source:  CommonWonders

Editor's Note
There is a discussion that I never hear anymore, and that is the concept of a “just war.” Perhaps it has become so quaint a thought that it is disregarded before utterance. For those who are against war, the answer is basically that there is no such thing as a just war. For those who war, either all wars are “just”, or ethics is not part of the calculation. In a world where war is so common that we rarely know all the conflicts that are going on, war is a given of existence and many nations (especially the US) are militarized.

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Category: Gaza, Israel, Peace, Robert C. Koehler, War and Conflict | Comments Off on No One Owns the Future
26 March 2024

Transcending Cultural Erasure

[Photo: Palestinians perform a folk dance on the 20th Palestinian Festival celebrations in Gaza City, Gaza on 8 July 2019. Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency. MiddleEastMonitor]

By Robert C. Koehler
Source:  CommonWonders

Editor's Note
Sometimes when the pain lies so deep you cannot find its name or the words to express it, the only release is through song. When you find the rhythm of song the pain rushes out in a torrent of anguish and tears until you lie empty with tears on your face and your voice raw. Increasingly, I find my eyes welling with tears for no specific reason. Maybe it’s just a sign that I am an old woman, but I think that the pain of the world is being carried through the wind; which comprises the air that fills my lungs with each breath; that then weighs on my soul until I must cry … or sing out the pain. If you find others with whom to sing then perhaps you find that Kumbaya moment.

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Category: Culture, Indigenous Struggles and Rights, Israel, Palestine, Robert C. Koehler, Silencing & Repression | Comments Off on Transcending Cultural Erasure