Peace: One Person at a Time

Is anybody else dismayed at the United States Senate and their voted censure of MoveOn.org’s ad about General David Petraeus and how the White House used him to foment a political (not military) strategy? Followed quickly by yet another fruitless vote to end the war in Iraq?

One of the things that has been burning me up over the pols and their antics is the all too frequent bandying-about of the phrase “the American people.” What American people? The whole populace? A more diverse group doesn’t exist.

There is no the American people. There are American persons, individuals, all of whom have a solemn obligation to communicate with their elected officials to let said sworn-in persons know how we feel, what we want, what’s to be done, how to vote. Do you have the phone numbers of your senators, congresspersons, governors, mayors, alderfolk? If not, why not? Do you call them regularly? If not, why not?

Consider the words of the first Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II, Five-Star General Dwight David Eisenhower:

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

People, my friend, is the plural of person, the singular, the I, the you, the one individual whose vote you represent in this country. Persons do more for peace than “the American people” because there’s no such thing. It would be a boon if we followed General Eisenhower’s advice.

If we each get in touch with how much we really do want peace, and we tell our elected officials over and over and over again, patiently, willingly, lovingly, one of these days—probably when we least expect it—the governments will get out of the way and let us have it.