by Deepak Chopra, Tikkun, 1 Jan 2009.
The following is a memo to Barack Obama from Deepak Chopra:
PEACE
You have been elected by the first anti-war constituency since 1952,
when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected after promising to end the Korean
War. But ending a war isn’t the same as bringing peace. America has been
on a war footing since the day after Pearl Harbor, 67 years ago. We
spend more on our military than the next 16 countries combined. If you
have a vision of change that goes to the heart of this country’s deep
problems, ending our dependence on war is far more important than ending
our dependency on foreign oil.
The most immediate changes are economic. Unless it can make as much
money as war, peace doesn’t stand a chance. Since aerospace and military
technologies remain the United States’ most destructive export,
fostering wars around the world, what steps can we take to reverse that
trend and build a peace-based economy?
1. Scale out arms dealing and make it illegal by the year 2020.
2. Write into every defense contract a requirement for a peacetime project.
3. Subsidize conversion of military companies to peaceful uses with tax
incentives and direct funding.
4. Convert military bases to housing for the poor.
5. Phase out all foreign military bases.
6. Require military personnel to devote part of their time to rebuilding
infrastructure.
7. Call a moratorium on future weapons technologies.
8. Reduce armaments like destroyers and submarines that have no use
against terrorism and were intended to defend against a superpower enemy
that no longer exists.
9. Fully fund social services and take the balance out of the defense
and homeland security budgets.
These are just the beginning. We don’t lack creativity in coping with
change. Without a conversion of our present war economy to a peace
economy, the high profits of the military-industrial complex ensures
that it will never end.
Do these nine steps seem unrealistic or fanciful? In various ways, other
countries have adopted similar measures. The former Soviet army is
occupied with farming and other peaceful work, for example. But
comparisons are rather pointless, since only the United States is
burdened with such a massive reliance on defense spending. Ultimately,
empire follows the dollar. As a society, we want peace, and we want to
be seen as a nation that promotes peace. For either ideal to come true,
you as president must back up your vision of change with economic
reality. So far, that hasn’t happened under any of your predecessors.
All hopes are pinned on you.
Deepak Chopra is acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest leaders in
the field of mind-body medicine. He is the author of over 50 books,
including Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment and Ageless Body, Timeless
Mind.
Related Posts:
these steps are also economical. our country ran on the military industrial complex for decades and it broke us. If we can just convey the idea that peace is the ultimate for-profit movement! Everybody will benefit in every way by flipping the mindset around and seeing that a lack of peace costs us dearly.
Dear Dr. Chopra,
You have presented well considered ideas. However there is no mention of the fear or the psychology of fear. We Americans have made “Fear of the Other” our constant companion and handed it out to the Federal Government to contain the fear and make us feel safe. From 1650 to 1850 we fought the natives on the basis of barbarians attacking us and destroying our towns and villages. We put them on reservation where we could monitor them. We fought the European nations and passed the Monroe Doctrine, for the fear of foreign occupation. We fought two world wars for the fear of losing control on the world stage. We forced Japan to attack us because we pushed Dutch not to supply oil to Japan, which led Japan to attack us. Our role in fighting Germany was similar. We fear losing our self designated topmost position in the world so we have created the largest army in the world, located it over 760 bases around the world. To be more secure we have armed our so called friends with the latest weapons for defense ( which can also be used for offense), and we have supplied them with the latest weapons for crowd control and monitoring the civil society.
Soviet Union was our bug bear of fear. We lost it in 1990. So we had to generate another. We call this Fight Against World Terrorism. All this war on terrorism is a mechanism of our mind. We do not want to remove root causes of terrorism which are the prime cause for people going wild and become terrorists. We want to crush the terrorists without understanding what makes a person a terrorist.
Fear is the psychological basis on which we live. Unless we accept those who oppose use are not going to destroy us we will not change.
Mohammad Imran
Ringwood, NJ