Talking with a friend the other day about his discoveries at ancestry.com gave me a useful way of looking at our current political situation. He learned that a great grandfather going back to the 1720s had left, in his will, one fifth of his slaves to each of his children. Astonishing, we agreed, that the assumption of slaves as personal property, to be passed along in the same way as houses or sheep, could have been so perfectly acceptable only a few hundred years ago. And among people we discover were members of our family. But then, another friend remarked, if the slaves weren’t taken care of in that way, what future would they have?

That question came from a caring place but it startled and jarred me. Can all our barbarisms be excused because, once acted upon, there is no alternative but to continue? What are the factors so potent that they keep us from questioning and demanding an end to injustice?

Can we learn something about our current assumptions? Do we, for instance, carry assumptions around military force? Is it not a given in our culture that an honorable life can be led in obedience to the choices made by leaders of national government? Does our culture encourage us to question those choices? There are memorials in every city and hamlet reminding us, instead, to honor those who have died while “serving”. And what does it mean to “serve” one’s country? What is it our country most needs? Surely it isn’t violence. Violence, as we know too well, always creates more violence.

Can we take a clear look at the history of war and see that “defense of freedom” is not the honest truth of most wars? Like slavery, war is a defense of our economy. Economy may be the most potent of factors in keeping us compliant. What our young people are trained to do in war is to kill the followers of another nation’s leaders in a push for economic power. War uses young people as pawns, one could even make the case that the military contract holds them hostage. Mostly we’re able to avoid thinking about the grim reality of what our young people are asked to learn and do in today’s wars on terror. Heaven knows the leaders and the media spend a lot of capital spinning those realities. Their misinformation protects our sensibilities, letting us think of war as just another football game. If our conscience is free of the facts we’re not likely to rise up in protest. And yet, apparently well-educated and charitable people broadcast “news” of these wars as if it was all necessary, inevitable and acceptable. Astonishing!

Like slavery, war is tough to give up. It protects our economy. I fear that too many of us ask: if we don’t continue to kill, what future will we have?

Afterword: Thinking about our future makes it clear that it’s time to create new questions. Perhaps to see what kind of future would come from an economy based on sharing fairly, from an economy that considers the future of our species, our home planet. It’s a shift in awareness and it’s happening all around us today. This is where hope lies. And we can all join in. An easy first step can be in how we use our dollars. If we can spend a little more and buy a little less by supporting local, family owned businesses that will make a surprisingly loud statement. If we think hard about who is spending our tax dollars and what those dollars are saying in our names, we may choose to speak out, to use our voice and find our power to make change. Alice Walker considers activism as “the rent we pay for living on this planet.” I urge you to visit these links for a look at the “Next System Project”: http://thenextsystem.org and http://democracycollaborative.org/content/next-system-project.

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Rosalie Paul is a member of PeaceWorks. She lives in Brunswick.