Vladislav Davidzonthe art of doing the impossible – thoughts on the great turning

United States Soldier,

You have taken an oath to defend this nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. When your Commander in Chief announces later today your new orders to escalate the war in Afghanistan, the time will come for you to fulfill your oath.

You must stand down and refuse to follow this order.

You must stand down because you know the truth. Deep in your heart, you know that this war will do nothing to make America safer.

You must stand down because you know that the United States Senate and Congress have become fully corrupt with special interest money from the very same companies profiting from this war. Deep in your heart, you know that this money is the one and only reason why you are being ordered into war.

You must stand down because you know when your buddies die, they are dying for Exxon and Mobil, Chevron and Halliburton. Deep in your heart, you know that their deaths and your death will only serve to make the rich, richer.

You must stand down because you know the order you are being given is thereby illegal. These things you know.

The time has come to fulfill your oath and to protect the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. You must stand down and come home.

You have the power to save our democracy. The time has come for you to serve this country, to protect this beautiful land from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

We, the civilian population of the United States, are ordering you to stand down. We are committing to doing absolutely everything in our power to support you when you take that stand. Stand down and join us — and together, let us rebuild the promise of the Great Democracy.

“Let us teach both ourselves and others that politics ought to be a reflection of the aspiration to contribute to the happiness of the community and not of the need to deceive and pillage for political purposes. Let us teach both ourselves and others that politics does not have to be the art of the possible, especially if this means the art of speculating, calculating, secret agreements, and cynical maneuvering, but that it also can be the art of the impossible, that is the art of making both ourselves and the world better.”

This weblog began on March 26, 2003 with the beginning of my commitment to working full time for social change. I’ve since traveled to the Middle East and walked the olive groves of Palestine and the streets of old Jerusalem, biked across the country learning about food security and later worked to support the Green Party. Lovers came and went, many new friends came into my life, and I’ve lost some old friends.

As I walked my path I grew and changed. Although I’ve seen friends get brutalized by the police and murdered by the brutality of the occupation, I also discovered that the solutions we seek are often all quite simple. As one of my teachers, Bill Mollison, says “Though the problems are increasingly complex, the solutions are embarrassingly simple.”

This post marks the turn of this blog towards looking at those solutions. The problems we face are no doubt staggering — global warming, dramatic extinction, massive political corruption resulting from the perfect storm combination of the corporate military-prison-industrial complex, and the list goes on.

And yet the solutions are stunningly simple. After all, global warming is a direct result of deforestation; obviously we can plant trees. Apathy is a direct result of disempowerment, and addressing the causes of that disempowerment has become my life’s work. After all, leadership is about empowering others to lead.

The fact is that most problems we face are nothing more but a massive failure of imagination. The suicidal path we’ve chosen has thus far been the best we could imagine. We could do better. Imagination begins here.

“Upon suffering beyond suffering, the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again.

I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom.

I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one.”
- Chief Crazy Horse, Oglala Sioux

Generation WE: The Movement Begins… from Generation We on Vimeo.

“And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, “I was just following orders.”" – George W. Bush, 03/17/03