{"id":1210,"date":"2013-11-11T15:11:37","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T20:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1210"},"modified":"2021-08-02T17:04:55","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T21:04:55","slug":"poem-rude-invitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/11\/poem-rude-invitation\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: A Rude Invitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Violence is an invitation<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: large;\">To more violence<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: large;\">And a rude invitation at that<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: large;\">Such invitations need not be returned<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: large;\">As you might have guest<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Violence begets violence.\u00a0 Means produce ends.\u00a0 How can we escape this vicious cycle?\u00a0 Must we accept every invitation offered to us?\u00a0 Do we possess the freedom to decline an invitation?\u00a0 Or, does violence rob us of any possibility of responding nonviolently?\u00a0 There is little question that violence demands a response!\u00a0 Returning violence for violence seems to be the first responder, but rather than healing only creates more victims and a cascade of crises.\u00a0 We need to look beyond our first, most base, response.\u00a0 Otherwise, violence becomes enacted in our lives as a self-fulfilling prophecy.\u00a0 If Gandhi was wrong, and peace is not possible, then war defines both our means and our ends.\u00a0 I believe peace is possible.\u00a0 To practice making this a reality I simply rule out violence as a legitimate means.\u00a0 Once violence is ruled out, then creation begins.\u00a0 By setting a boundary disallowing violence on my part, I create the conditions where I must find alternatives, creative alternatives.\u00a0 Many are uncomfortable with such a pacifist practice because they don&#8217;t want to sacrifice what might possibly be a legitimate practice of violence.\u00a0 Though perhaps most importantly, disarming oneself may be way too dangerous too oneself and much too much work for most.\u00a0 Nonetheless, my experience is that a working assumption of violence as a last resort, is largely a wholesale acceptance of invitations to violence.\u00a0 As a classic example, the so-called Just War Theory, in practice better resembles the It&#8217;s Just a War Theory!\u00a0 In fact, no nation has ever declared its assent to the just war principles, let alone that they have met them.\u00a0 The powerful emotional response to violence is too closely linked to a similar, if not more-so, violent response.\u00a0 Rage is simply too often too difficult to reign back in once violence is chosen.\u00a0 Nonviolence is the prudent path.\u00a0 As far as violence goes, which is routinely too far, we shouldn&#8217;t even go down that path &#8212; don&#8217;t even go there!\u00a0 War, the grossest manifestation of violence on our planet, requires demonizing entire populations and groups of people to be &#8220;successfully&#8221; waged.\u00a0 Preying on the epic human weaknesses of xenophobia, parochial patriotism, and unjust gain fuel the engines of war.\u00a0 Channeling the outrageousness of violence into long-term, creative nonviolent responses strikes me as the way, and the goal, out of unending violence.\u00a0 Channeling the emotions stirred when confronting outrageous injustices should stir a deep commitment to human rights, as in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/about-us\/universal-declaration-of-human-rights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Universal Declaration of Human Rights<\/a> (of which the United States of America has never ratified).\u00a0 Such a commitment to universal human rights propels the nonviolent to challenge nations to higher standards than the wholesale violation of human rights that is war.\u00a0 If we fail at this challenge, and refuse to return the invitations to war, then war will persist, as you will have guest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Violence is an invitation To more violence And a rude invitation at that Such invitations need not be returned As you might have guest Violence begets violence.\u00a0 Means produce ends.\u00a0 How can we escape this vicious cycle?\u00a0 Must we accept &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/11\/poem-rude-invitation\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,57,9,15],"tags":[103,563,574,386,459,428,115,154,497,122,402,34,560,188,201,658,94,424,110,489,601,333,504,53,186,163,203,380,295],"class_list":["post-1210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-war","category-peace","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-acceptance","tag-america","tag-creation","tag-creativity","tag-crises","tag-experience","tag-freedom","tag-gandhi","tag-healing","tag-human-rights","tag-justice","tag-nonviolence","tag-nonviolent","tag-pacifism","tag-patriotism","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-possibility","tag-power","tag-rage","tag-reality","tag-sacrifice","tag-self-fulfilling-prophecy","tag-short-poems","tag-state","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-work","tag-xenophobia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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