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Feedback ForumCan individual citizens make a difference in international crises?Submissions for this question are no longer being accepted. Previously submitted comments appear below. Comments may have been edited for content or space. Poster: Rosalind Comment: I believe that individuals, can, working in community, shape ideas and potential solutions, and then begin talking with others to build courage and find channels to carry the idea forward. Poster: Jerry Comment: I think it is naiive to believe that any individual can make a difference in this society. The powers that be have and always will decide what happens. We as individuals are manipulated and patronized according to what the people in government wants. In this country there are only two things that count: Money and power, and if you do not have a superior amount of one or both, you do not count or matter - period. Poster: Rita Comment: The answer to your question: NO. On the average. Unless you are a Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, or George Bush, or someone with comparable power, energy, and support behind him/her. Poster: Marilyn Novak Comment: An individual can rarely make much of an impact on international problems. BUT--with the movement toward online communication, unimportant individuals have come together with other unimportant individuals, and yes, now these groups are making a small, but important, dent in world crises and national politics. Poster: Shane Comment: There are many out there who feel an individual cannot make a significant change in the world. This way of thinking deters the individual from even trying. Let your voice be heard. Raise awareness throughout your circle. Write letters to politicians demanding change! Vote...but research the one you vote for. We cannot afford another W. Poster: Essie B. Comment: I strongly believe that each individual can be effective in many ways; small as it may be, toward bringing greater good. That is why we are here on this earth - to do good and create a better world for our children. Going shopping is good but not everything. Being selfish is ok but also helping others is even better ! Every little helps. People will; through education, achieve a higher level of civilization. Poster: Andrew Comment: I too would like an answer to Elaine's question. In response to this week's question: I think that too often the American media encourages us as citizens to obsess over particular examples of failed (or failing) international relationships, and in so doing forces us to lose site of the social shortcomings which exist within our own nation (and LOCAL communities) and which, without a doubt, have real global consequences. Regina is right; peace begins at home, in one's own neighborhood. I can't help but believe that the love and respect we produce within our own communities reverberates and extends beyond the boundaries of this nation. I think that the religious delegation on this week's episode of NOW deserves a great deal of gratitude for challenging and contesting a racist and trigger-happy media machine, and for bringing a human and spritual element to U.S - Irani relations. Real peace cannot occur without real understanding, and real understanding requires spirit-to-spirit interactions/bonds. Poster: Ron Weinberg Comment: Not unless they band together. The enemy is clearly the corporate criminals who are pulling the strings, and they are well versed in 'divide and conquer'. Individual citizens need to recognize that the status quo is a massive looting of them by the rich and powerful. Stop buying the products of corporations that abuse workers. Stop supporting the empire. International crises are controlled by the criminal corporations that are seeking to grab all of the planet's resources for their own usage. Workers have the numbers, they need to wake up and overthrow the corporate criminals. Poster: Doug Comment: Any crisis that is solved, be it local or international, starts with individuals and mushrooms from there. I can not think of one crisis the world's people have solved that has not started with individuals first. Poster: Regina O'Melveny Comment: We as individual citizens can make a difference in simple ways: by treating others with regard and respect, such as the Pakistani man at the cleaners, the Salvadoran woman who cleans the house, the Cambodian student who has come to the US to study architecture, the Korean family that has opened a restaurant, the German woman who has fallen in love with the Mojave desert. We are all ambassadors at home, ambassadors of the great gift of our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our global population. We are ambassadors of a great ongoing experiment in compassion, vision and generosity, even though we are often troubled by opposing values. We have the freedom and privilege to disagree, to express ourselves. So that every time we exchange a few words with the Sri Lankan woman, say, who sells oranges on the corner, we extend kindness to her and her country, a humanity that radiates outward, accumulates, touches others far away. We are all ambassadors of tolerance at home. May we constantly, humbly strive to embody our deepest purpose. Poster: Claudia Comment: Any human being in the world with access to a cell phone that can take pictures and also access to the internet to transmit those pictures can influence anything in the world or, better yet, expose something previouly unknow. The Internet is an extension of ourselves. It is our ears, eyes and mouths. Poster: Elaine Needham Comment: I'm wondering if it's possible to email individual Iranians to establish a dialog between us as just plain inhabitants of the planet. In my mind this is the only way to diffuse misunderstandings between people. Governments can't be held responsible for negotiating peaceful resolutions to establish win-win policy. Please send me info someone! Thank you, Elaine Poster: A Featherstone Comment: All real change throughout history has started from one individual, that's the spark that moves masses. Poster: Elsa Bondar Comment: Individual citizens can make a difference in political situations, depending on the climate for tolerance, the situation for change, the respect and status of the individual. Consider the position of Benjamin Franklin in Paris, working to get the cooperation of the French Government and nobility to back his revolutionary cause. Religion of the power base was against him, autocratic ideas held by those in power were against him, and British diplomats tried to undermine him. He had to show the French that it was in their interest, to support the American cause, in spite of all differences. He never lost his cool, or his good manners, and was steadfast in his friendships with French government officials and persons who stumped for him and admired him. Do we have someone who can be admired and trusted by Iranians, and yet hold true to the cause of the common good for safe and noble governmental relationships, service to mankind, as well as to the American and worldwide ideals of tolerance and respect for democratic government? Poster: Aurora E. Hunter Comment: Individual citizens can make a difference in international crises if they are activists within their country and have personal contacts abroad so that people of other countries can know that not all Americans are nutters. |
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