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FEEDBACK
Please
scroll the page to read some of the feedback from visitors
to our web site.
Hi Richard,
I
would like to introduce myself. My name is Heidi Millen and
I live here in Blaine...I found your website after a google
search about the International Peace Day...
I wanted to share with you a cause that a friend of mine from
Vermont started this year. Her son has just left for Marine
Boot Camp and she wanted to be able to do something to help
promote world peace. She has made these beautiful wooden peace
signs, each engraved with a number and the name of the website,
www.peacepass.com
Peace
Pass is about promoting world peace and providing support
for our troops. Our logo is "passing peace around the
world one person at a time." We began the journey on July
1st, 2006 by handing out several of the wooden peace signs
in Montpelier, Vermont at the State Capitol. We hope that when
someone receives one of the passes, they will log onto our
site and log in the guestbook which peace pass they have and
the location they received it and where they passed it along.
We hope our peace passes will eventually make it around the
world.
Although we are only in the early stages of being established,
it is our plan to raise money through our website which we
will donate a percentage of it to organizations that provide
services to our service men and women and their families.
I have asked my friend to make another pass that I would love
to launch from Blaine...Would this be a cause that you would
be interested in or know of someone that I can contact that
would want to help us out...Also, would you be interested in
linking our site to your page and give us permission to post
a link from our website to your site? I am the webmaster for
our site which is in its infancy stages...
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Heidi Millen
Blaine, WA
www.peacepass.com
Note:
I have been in touch with Heidi, and it strikes me as an
interesting project. I especially
like the fact
research
has been undertaken to understand the history of the peace
sign, which was not at all intended to be "political" according
to its original intention.
peace.
It
does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise,
trouble
or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things
and still be calm in your heart.
 Author Unknown
In many
instances we imagine peace to be something that exists outside
ourselves. We believe peace can be legislated or forced upon
another person, organization or country.
In actuality,
peace is a feeling and a quality of attitude that can only
be adopted personally by each person. Then we can share harmony
with others by our example for their understanding and consideration.
This peacefulness is spread from one person to another through
thoughtful words and actions.
In the
Peace Arch City, our town's mandate
is to encourage other cities by our example to create their
own community vision of peacefulness in order for societal
harmony to germinate elsewhere naturally. Then hopefully,
someday peace will eventually permeate everyday life, everywhere.
Jerry Gay
Dear Blaine peace pioneers,
I'm very fond of your concept of peace within one's own heart
as a prerequisite for peace throughout the world. If you are
at peace with yourself, you can become a happy person, and
happy people make the world a better and more peaceful place.
What happiness looks like is a very personal question that
only each individual can answer for him- or herself. The concept
of peace within one's own heart isn't an immanently political
question, it is a personal question that may have political
implications. It only becomes a controversial issue for people
who are afraid of peace, happiness and inner tranquility because
they are used to living in fear, anger and dissensus. People
who are used to using fear to get their way and consider fear
a proper driving force to model the world in the way they assume
it should be like. Peace is indeed a very personal issue because
it touches the question how you look upon yourself and how
you treat others, especially your dearest ones. Peace is also
tightly linked with love, but love doesn't necessarily need
to be peaceful. Love can be mixed with fear, and if things
go badly, love can even turn to hatred. Longlasting love respects
the inner peace of the beloved person and love as an expression
of one's own desire accepts people's limitations. True love
leaves space for freedom. Only in self-limitation you will
let other people's freedom grow. It's a matter of respect and
trust. It cuts both ways. Only if you are innerly calm, only
if you are at peace with yourself, you will let others have
their freedom and peace. And if you are willing to, you can
help another person's happiness and inner peace grow.
If this is a political program, if this is a controversial
concept, well, then I guess everything is political. But then
everything is personal as well. I could live with that. As
long as people will help peace spreading throughout the world.
Yours sincerely,
Ivo Harms, Berlin/Germany
Dear Vigil for Peace,
I would like to congratulate you on the completion of
the website. It looks really, really nice and professional!
I would also like to give a nice pat on the back to the website
designer and the kind philanthropist who donated his talent,
dedication and resources to making this website a dream come
true.
Peace is an important goal for the future; it is not a
goal just for a few, dedicated individuals, but for every single
person who hopes for a better tomorrow. But one of the problems
is that there are many ways of reaching that goal. I would
only hope that the effort from different organizations and
individuals would one day triumph.
Like what the website said, we may not be able to directly
influence conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and other troubled
parts of the world. We may not be able to directly stop wars
waged at home or abroad. But we can try to understand the issues
behind these conflicts.
Education can create world peace. We can become more intelligent
and responsive citizens - especially here, in America, where
we have great access to news sources from all over the world
and the opportunity to learn about the issues we face.
In this country, people are allowed use their intellect
to elect a fair and responsive government. After all, the beauty
of a democratic government lies in the privilege for ordinary
citizens to have a say in their government's affairs. But democracy
does not function when most of the public blindly listen to
their leaders and impulsively agree (or disagree) with their
actions. In this kind of society, there is no democracy, only sugared-coated
dictatorship.
I fear most of the American public blindly listen and
judge their leaders based on their emotions. I fear most of
the American electorate elect leaders that spend the most on
make-up and speak charming 30 second speeches on the news.
Al Gore recently said that "the
only thing that matters in American politics now is having
enough money to put 30-second commercials on air to persuade
the voters to elect or re-elect you." What happened to
the debates between intelligent individuals, the most basic
component behind any democratic society?
Only by understanding the issues behind conflicts, whether
they are personal or international, can we begin to spread
the importance of peace to others. We want people to really
understand how peace would benefit them and our society, not
like peace because "it's a nice
idea."
So how can we become educated and responsive citizens
of American society and therefore contribute to the idea of
peace? We can help international peace organizations?Pugwush
could be one of them. We can attend seminars and be peace advocates
in our communities. Or we can sacrifice thirty minutes of our
television time every day to read the newspaper and watch the
news; I don't mean the sports or entertainment section. I am
referring to the local, national, and international news. And
not just from one source but from many. If you are interested
in
the Israel-Lebanon conflict, read the American news. The Israeli
news and Lebanese news. Even the Canadian news. After all,
education is the key to a better society.
I was recently watching a Canadian documentary about how
the US government censors war coverage in American media. Surprisingly,
one learns a lot about another side of America from Canadian
sources. During the First Persian Gulf War, American war correspondents
treated the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait as an organized military
operation. Pictures of burnt out tanks and military vehicles,
with guns lying on the road, became a symbol of victory over
the Iraqi aggressors. But in reality, this so-called retreat
was a complete rout. The documentary showed scenes that were
not
seen on the American media: burnt civilian cars, fire-bombed,
shriveled bodies of a family in a truck, resembling the bodies
of those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and machine-gunned
bodies of refugees fleeing along the same road the Iraqi military
was using, blood pooling at the side of the road.
Even now, the current War on Iraq to most people is nothing
more than statistics, patriotic icons, flags, and pictures
of living soldiers. Why are we not seeing videos of soldiers
crying out from pain, or the few remains of a marine killed
by a suicide bomber? From other places in the world, why are
we not seeing the dead bodies of civilians in Lebanon and Israel,
or hearing the sounds of wounded children crying out in hospitals
in Palestine?
Unfortunately, this type of censorship exists not only
in America, but in other countries as well. Are governments
afraid the horrors of war would shock and sadden their country?
Or are they afraid that, once fully contemplating the true
horrors of any war, their country would demand peace? But this
type of censorship will not likely go away. Therefore, it is
our responsibility as responsive people to
search for a bigger picture of conflicts by examining multiple
sources, wherever they may be found.
Once we acquire a better understanding of the causes of
the conflict, we would not make comments such as "I don't
like so and so because they killed a lot of people" or "So
and so is a bad organization because they don't like our country." We
would begin to make intelligent observations and opinions.
And hopefully, the need for peace would be one of these observations.
Once our leaders discover that their constituents
are no longer as naive as they used to be, then they may be
better responsive to those who vote them into office, not to
those who paid for their ads on TV.
It would take some time before the majority of those in
our country and the world become responsive and intelligent
citizens. But in the meantime, a few of us ordinary folks would
become more
informed and knowledgeable; we would be capable of seeing the
greater picture and the direct benefits of a peaceful global
society. Wouldn't that
be a good small step for mankind?
Yours sincerely,
Donald Yung
Blaine, Washington
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Vigil for Peace. All Rights Reserved
www.vigil4peace.com
Email:
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