This heading could also be connected to the military conflicts overseas and this culture of violence that seeks to expand rather than build peace. It is to do with the industrial military complex that makes profit out of killing.  I guess until peace becomes profitable to those who only connect money to success, it will remain in the background as the real solution to humanity, until people are ready to give up guns and fear.

Given my previous blog this is what happens when you believe in ‘bad’ guys.  I think of Bush and his ‘good guy vs bad guy’ vision of the world.  It is very simple to relegate the world into two camps.  From a peace perspective we all have negative and postive, the peace education is to develop the positive through integrating values and encouraging release of negative feelings through breathing or screaming.  The socio-emotional intelligence is to train kids to feel their emotions, how they relate to others, what thoughts they believe and to learn through games how to problem solve.  It is essential that children and adults (particularly those in power) to learn to resolve conflict and not attach it to a masculine identity that is unquestioned for centuries and on a planet that can blow itself up 4 times over.  The technology without emotional intelligence renders humanity vulnerable to leaders who believe power is the extension of violence.  Trump is a good example of a person who would be an alpha male (likes to control), who believes that fear is what enables control (popular belief) and derives his sense of masculinity by controlling the feminine as he feels vulnerable to the power of the feminine (in truth).  So the peace work is to builds community, shared understanding, social norms, responsibility  and reconnect with neighbours to de-escalate community fear.  We are naturally group beings and it is in the group we feel safe.  It is to learn to assert needs and concerns rather than festering in little silos of fear which develop into mental health issues and possible violence if those beliefs are unquestioned.  The mass shootings are grievances that are unchecked coming from people disconnected from empathy and emotional intelligence who cannot connect their actions to the suffering of others.  The military is the same (sending love to them) they justify the violence as defence, but in truth 90% of casualties are civilian, so what is the difference if civilians mass shoot believing they hate the other, or armies mass kill believing the people are the enemy. I asked an intelligence officer years ago when they killed Muslim protestors by tying them up and stacking them in a truck (70 men) who aphyxiated. I asked the officer – who is the enemy?  He didn’t like my question. Today I believe it is very pertinent and drives to the root of continual violence that has become normalised in film and games to feed an industry that invests in conflict.  When you move into the peace reality you realise the money is not important, status is not better than, and happiness is about ‘to thine own self be true’.  This is a different reality but it is very real.  I guess we move from the guns when we are ready to drop the arms (alms).  The New Earth Army comes to mind. Start with peacekeeping if you have to carry a gun. Then learn peace philosophy and then you realise your thoughts attract what you fear, so you drop the gun as the realisation of security is in disarmament.  Disarm through love is my way. So I send love to all.

Bowling for Columbine was a brilliant film that summed up the roots of violence in the United States and the fear that people feed off and allow to shut them down as they lives of quite desperation and paranoia.  I was there and I witnessed the great fear peddled by the media, the aircraft carries as silent signals of greater fear of national conflict and then the personal fear of a woman I innocently followed onto a train (as I would normally do in Australia – lining up) was paranoid she actually moved when I sat behind her.  I couldn’t figure it out for a while and then realised she was paranoid.  I’d never had that happen in Australia, it was an eye opener.

So this article spells out the arms addiction in the United States and the deaths that occur given mental health issues and a diet of continual violence.  I will note here that the cyber world will only exacerbate the violence as empathy is lost given neural networks rewire to focus on logic rather than social skills (emotional intelligence). The later is what creates social harmony and peace.  The over emphasis on technology actually reduces the abilty to socialise, empathise and creatively problem solve.  It is a real time bomb in the future as it is an unknown.  I spoke to a mother yesterday who is alarmed at how schools allow kids to keep their phones, work on laptops as it is affecting their social emotional skills.  Moreover, they can easily be co-opoted by strangers via technology as they innocently believe what they see as real.  This new friend told me that her daughter had been asked to send naked pictures to a man.  The mother now monitors her children, she said what of other mothers or father’s who don’t get the technology and just let the kids watch anything. This opens them up to the dark side of humanity where they can see live images of anything they choose. This affects them psychologically, it can increase fear of the outside world.  This woman said that she and her husband take their kids to sport a lot to teach them team work, learning to work with others (cooperation), having fun and getting fit otherwise the kids stay on computers.  A real problem.  

The guys who were shooters gained their knowledge from the online world.  They watch movies to psyche up the aggression, they don’t know how to deal with their frustrations so they seek power in images they think are power, when in truth violence is powerlessness seeking to feel powerful. Real power comes from loving kindness and self love. This is not a wishy washy statement, it is a fact.  Lover is the real power on the planet but because females have been associated with the gentleness, kindness and beauty, rather than join in this males tend to differentiate to find what they feel is the masculine.  They try to protect, to defend, to use strength, to fight to feel power.  This is a false teaching.  Read below and may we all awaken to the power of nonviolence. Gandhi called this more powerful than all the nuclear weapons.  Yet it is ignored as it is normalised as a given.  Yet we are creating societies that are more withdrawn, more conservative and more afraid which is the shutting down of the heart centre.  The heart is what takes risks, explores, opens up, shares, reveals and heals.  It is the real hope for humanity.

Click the link to go to the article with charts embedded.  https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html

How US gun culture compares with the world in five charts

By Kara Fox, CNN
Graphics by Henrik Pettersson, CNN

Updated 1607 GMT (0007 HKT) March 9, 2018