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The Great Linking – A Paradigm Shift in Peace Advocacy Optimization

Seventy-nine peace, anti-war, religious, inter-faith and humanist resources with descriptions embedded in an ambitious original article designed to lift internet site rankings of all who join the Great Linking

By G. Brundage

“I’m this religion!” I’m that religion!” “I don’t believe in any religion!” “I believe in democracy!” “I believe in socialism!”

So sorry, but there is no time for sectarian squabbling now. The interminable wars are not profitable to anyone except a handful of already ultra-rich people. The increasing rate of killing innocents around the world is unconscionable and cannot continue.

Likewise, with the revival of the Cold War and accelerated speed of events in D.C., WWIII and a Civil War within the United States become more probable events, possibly sooner than anyone might expect. The reader might not believe this, but perhaps spending some time in one of the American hegemonic wars might clarify things. Maybe experiencing a mob forming from a peaceful demonstration in the blink of an eye will awaken the reader to the real potential for radical changes that can’t really be anticipated. It would be so easy for any of several “interested parties” to launch a false flag operation that would trigger a global war in the South China Sea. It doesn’t have to be the USA that launches that operation either. Nothing is going to change in the massive upcoming converging trends if Euro-American voters don’t get access to more honest news. Only then can the great powers start to back off and a real global-scale catastrophe averted.

The Great Linking project is designed to improve the internet site rankings of peace-oriented organizations and alt-news sites by interlinking. This article only covers the peace-oriented sites including anti-war, religious, interfaith, and humanist organizations. Another article is available with alt-news sites embedded within an article. These two articles if posted on peace organizations’ and alt-news’ sites should be the simplest way to mutually improve site rankings, a test of Google’s algorithm, and/or a revolutionary act to finally put an end to American foreign military adventurism and deadly economic sanctions, while simultaneously affirming American First Amendment rights to freedom of the press and free speech.

I hope all peace organizations and alt-news sites publish both articles or at least the link-lists that are posted on their respective pages on the https://thegreatlinking.org website. You don’t have to mention “Great Linking.” You don’t have to publish all the links on either list. But! Better site connectedness improves everyone’s page ranking on Google’s search engine results. Getting more accurate and honest news like only the alt-news provides to voters in western democracies is critical to averting what appears to

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be an entirely possible upcoming global catastrophe. The New Cold War is no joke and it can become a hot war in the blink of an eye.

Whereas mainstream news tends to support alt-right international militarism, alt-news investigates and reports the inappropriate use of power in exacting detail. Though many or most religious and secular peace advocacy organizations may have 501(c)(3) or (4) status and secure funding, the funding of most alt-news internet sites is usually marginal at best. In 2017 Google’s site ranking algorithms changed dramatically and most alt-news sites were hit very hard. Google’s new algorithms have also come under fire from some political groups and legislative oversight has been suggested, but no solutions have been forthcoming.

Participation in The Great Linking of peace advocacy organizations and alt-news organizations should earn higher rankings on web browser algorithms. Articles have some advantages over link lists, but both are good. Links-in from quality sites are the premier point winner on the Google algorithm. The time for feudalist approaches to winning the peace is over. We rise together or will fall alone. Though I dislike hackneyed phrases, this one at this time has never been truer.

Articles with original text and diverse quality (SEO optimized) sources receive higher rankings than bare bones link lists that are sometimes identified as spam. Google updates its algorithms quite often however most rules remain the same. Links in to a site from “quality,” SEO optimized sites (that for example have owned a domain name for many years and are often updated) earn big points. Links out from a site generally don’t hurt a site’s ranking unless they lead to spam sites.

IntroductionThe years I lived in the USA were mostly in the Midwest and consequently I prefer a “plain speaking” manner of speech and writing. Thus, I can confidently assert: “The promotion of peace can be pretty darned complicated.”

In this article I advocate from a “minority” point of view, which is really a misnomer because the primary targets of the vast monolithic military industrial complex world-wide, people of color, Muslims, socialists and the poor of all races and religions actually represent the vast majority of people on earth, not a minority. But! In terms of power, we are an insignificant minority despite our huge numbers because we are all divided along sectarian lines.

Because most of us are not American we appear to lack certain rights. In my case I am American but rarely live in the US, so again I seem to lack certain rights. Worse still, even in the USA, minorities may have rights, but those rights are often or usually trampled on by those with money and power whose perceptual pathways simply don’t view

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minorities as real people with rights, hopes, dreams, fears, and needs the same as “everyone else.”

Peace advocacy and potential conflicts of interestTo the colonial masters, peace is a good thing. The profits come in and the slaves obediently follow orders without question. Likewise, in examining American history one might note the nascent American colonists fought for freedom from the British and French while simultaneously colonizing the Native Americans.

What’s even more controversial (only amongst the liberal elite) is that via bizarre extensions of the Monroe Doctrine and American Exceptionalism, the USA in partnership with Europe have been, since WWII, trying to colonize the entire world. The goal is “hegemony in perpetuity” and the prevailing philosophy used to rationalize the methodologies used to attain this goal is purely Machiavellian, and in most cases extremely violent.

Peace promoting organizations too often find themselves in the awkward position of trying to promote peace, while requiring donations from the scions of empire to do it. This may in some cases become problematic when doing more than buying bandages to cover the wounds from colonial wars, and instead trying to do something substantial to actually prevent another war of colonial conquest.

As we know the military industrial complex (AKA Euro-American “war machine,” more accurately called the “military-industrial-media complex” these days) is a corporate controlled multi-national, multi-trillion-dollar industry – an infinitely vast killing and torture machine. No peace advocacy organization has successfully prevented a war the US “intelligence community” has targeted for “regime change.”

The Great Linking design briefly discussed herein goes beyond ordinary peace advocacy in that it is a test of the information stranglehold (“I can’t breathe!”) that’s been greatly tightened in recent years on the internet.

Some peace organization’s sponsors might not appreciate participation in a plan that might actually give peace organizations and alt-news a fair voice in the information marketplace. The hegemonic “powers that be” view any attempts at self-determination and exercise of first amendment rights as a “challenge.” That’s ridiculous, but that’s the way they see it. Paranoia is a dreadful disease and unfortunately the people of peace can’t help everyone. Sometimes the best we can do is try to work around the more obstinate troublemakers in venturing forward towards worthy goals.

I don’t want to sound like a “peace apologist” here, but it’s one thing to advocate for peace, it’s another thing entirely to do something that might be viewed as challenging

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the corporate monopoly on information which is one of the critical support mechanisms for the Euro-American drive towards hegemony in perpetuity.

Fortunately, most people in the world are family people and don’t like war, don’t divide the world into winners and losers and don’t feel challenged by someone only working towards equality and fairness. The hegemonic drive towards total domination in all spheres is a virulent and dangerous psychopathology. An unquestioned assumption that unrestrained capitalism is the ideal economic state is a big part of the problem.

Legally this great linking project should be fine, protected by First Amendment Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press rights, simultaneously most people are aware laws can be very selectively applied and interpreted to protect the vested interests of the wealthy and powerful.

Internet suppression of peace advocacy and alt-news sitesWhich brings me to the reason I’m writing this article. Ever since 2017 at least most peace promoting organizations and the alternative news sites that decry war have suffered what appears to be intentional site ranking suppression on Google. This is particularly distressing because “With its ever-evolving algorithms, a dominant online advertising platform, and personalized user experience, Google has amassed a global market share of 87%.”

In other words, Google has a near monopoly on internet searches. Holding second, third and fourth places in global search engine usage are YouTube, Amazon and Facebook, which are not usually used to research contemporary issues, peace organizations or alternative news. Thus, Google is the monolith controlling what the vast majority of people on earth can find on the internet. That is a violation of anti-trust laws – but so powerful are the huge corporations now they get away with it.

Internet suppression of alt-news in particular is a very dangerous thing because mainstream news functions primarily as a soapbox for the corporate superstructure that profits from war, and buys almost all the politicians using anonymous Super PACs.

Having been an anti-war demonstrator since the early 1970s, having worked as a journalist in several hegemonic wars, and having had my own internet site visits dropped by around 95%, rather suddenly in 2019, I decided to try to elevate the site rankings of all the major peace organizations and alt-news sites following the best advice of SEO experts by interlinking at least some of the major peace-oriented sites. The organizations I describe below represent far less than the total, but hopefully will get “the ball rolling.”

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The Great LinkingThe concept is very simple. According to SEO rules links in to a site from quality (SEO optimized) sites earn mega rank elevation points. The theory is those links in from “quality” sites prove the value of a site. Links out from a site either earn minor points or no points as long as they don’t lead to spam, which is heavily penalized.

Most peace advocacy and alt-news sites are reasonably well optimized. If every peace advocacy and alt-news site links in and out to every other peace advocacy and alt-news site, this Great Linking should hugely improve all participants’ site ranking. Then perhaps the corporate monopoly promoting war via all forms of media including news can be broken and internet users worldwide can get vastly more fair access to peace advocacy organizations and more accurate news (alt-news) than is currently peddled on mainstream news (MSM) sources.

It is a truism that all people of conscience value peace and are against war. People with a moral conscience judge war to be an “evil” thing.

The use and abuse of lawLikewise, most people with an understanding of history and law will argue that laws exist to increase people’s freedom, for example the law prohibiting murder increases everyone one else’s freedom to live, the law against theft increases everyone’s freedom to own property and so on.

There is an almost paradoxical relationship between expanding empires and the laws they produce. Empires expand in a bloody lawless fashion conquering all around, and once established fashion laws to 1) ensure the peace and 2) maintain the power structure of the elite that rule that empire.

The bitter-sweet truth

The price of freedom is high. And yet without truth and justice there can be no true freedom, only deferred debts that must be paid sooner or later. Without freedom there can be no peace.

Democracy as it is practiced now in the USA is a corporate driven duopolistic fraud that has denied freedom to more people on earth than any nation or empire in human history.

Since WWII the US has overthrown every known form of government including numerous democracies, in the name of democracy and a tragically reversed form of freedom that demands absolute subservience to the American controlled corporate empire.

The sad fact of the matter is that the USA has debts to pay, specifically to

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those nations and surviving victim family members its hegemonic war machine has so violently assaulted, which are primarily nations of people of color, Muslim countries, and socialist/communist countries

the decimated remnants of the Native American “Circle of Nations” which was shattered by the European invasions and

the majority of African Americans and other minorities who still suffer from white supremacist centered mass media, biased law enforcement, judicial policies, and educational system, and too often live in reaction to those prejudices rather than with real freedom to choose their own destinies.

The phrase ‘All men are created equal’ can be interpreted in a number of ways.

Most feminists will instantly affirm it to be a torrid statement of male patriarchal enslavement of women and I'm astonished it hasn't already been amended to say: ‘All people are created equal.’

Stanford University scholar Melissa De Witte published an article recently in which she explored different interpretations of that phrase.

“On July 4, 1776, when the Continental Congress adopted the historic text drafted by Thomas Jefferson, they did not intend it to mean individual equality. Rather, what they declared was that American colonists, as a people, had the same rights to self-government as other nations. Because they possessed this fundamental right, Rakove said, they could establish new governments within each of the states and collectively assume their “separate and equal station” with other nations. It was only in the decades after the American Revolutionary War that the phrase acquired its compelling reputation as a statement of individual equality.”

https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2020/07/01/meaning-declaratnce-changed-time

Her interpretation may or may not be accurate. It would be nice to think the founders of the United States actually believed all nations and individuals are equal. That would be wonderful and one might wonder if that phrase was stated somewhat ambiguously to include both individual rights and national rights.

Relating to this is the duplicitous relationship Thomas Jefferson had with his slave Sally Hemings. Individual rights didn’t apparently mean that much to Jefferson. Her private room next to his didn’t have a window. He most certainly did capitalize on massive slave labor and wholeheartedly enjoyed the fruits of that ownership.

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Also in that paragraph is an implicit argument most readers might miss. The nascent Americans lived in European colonies from which they wanted freedom, while at the same time they systematically went about colonizing Native Americans thereby negating that noble sentiment: “All men are created equal,” while simultaneously enriching themselves with slave labor.

Just as in the days of old the purpose of laws has too often tragically been reversed wherein laws are used as tools to oppress the poor and minorities and exist only to increase the almost immeasurable wealth of the rich. Laws against hate speech for example have been reversed such that one cannot even decry discrimination against minorities because such speech is interpreted and prosecuted as an attack upon the majorities.

In Europe, Hate Speech Laws are Often Used to Suppress and Punish Left-Wing Viewpoints - If hate speech laws existed in the U.S., their prime targets would be pro-Palestinian groups, Muslims, atheists, Black Lives Matter activists, and antifa.

by Glenn Greewald, August 29 2017

But hate speech restrictions are used in those countries to suppress, outlaw, and punish more than far-right bigotry. Those laws have frequently been used to constrain and sanction a wide range of political views that many left-wing censorship advocates would never dream could be deemed “hateful,” and even against opinions which many of them likely share.

France is probably the most extreme case of hate speech laws being abused in this manner. In 2015, France’s highest court upheld the criminal conviction of 12 pro-Palestinian activists for violating restrictions against hate speech. Their crime? Wearing T-shirts that advocated a boycott of Israel — “Long live Palestine, boycott Israel,” the shirts read — which, the court ruled, violated French law that “prescribes imprisonment or a fine of up to $50,000 for parties that ‘provoke discrimination, hatred or violence toward a person or group of people on grounds of their origin, their belonging or their not belonging to an ethnic group, a nation, a race or a certain religion.'”

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-laws-are-often-used-to-suppress-and-punish-left-wing-viewpoints

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The weaponization of languageEven though I wholeheartedly agree with the central theme of the above article, the writer made at least one significant faux pas:

In 2006, after a series of attacks carried out by Muslims, Republican Newt Gingrich called for “a serious debate about the First Amendment” so that “those who would fight outside the rules of law, those who would use weapons of mass destruction, and those who would target civilians are, in fact, subject to a totally different set of rules.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-laws-are-often-used-to-suppress-and-punish-left-wing-viewpoints

If the attacks Mr. Gingrich were referring to were made against innocents (and I presume they were), the attackers were not Muslims. They may have had Muslim names, they may have thought of themselves as Muslims, but by breaking the laws of Islam in a cruel and evil way, they were not Muslims at the time of those crimes. They abandoned their Islam when they attacked innocents. Just so there is no such thing as “Islamic extremism.” Islamic law as established in the Quran mandates balance and justice. Phrases like “Islamic terrorism” and “Islamic extremism” are non-sequiturs, the antithesis of Islam, exactly the same as “war-mongering peace organizations” and alt-right versions of Christianity. Those defamatory phrases are weaponized buzz phrases engineered by the enemies of peace.

[I personally believe there is a global war against all religions as articulated by Charles Upton. Simultaneously I have enormous empathy for secular atheists as many of my best teachers just couldn’t stomach the extreme hypocrisies that have been inflicted upon humankind by followers of the great religions. In all cases language has been weaponized to divide rather than unit people.]

Few non-Muslims would catch that major error in the above quoted article so conditioned are we to accept the fallacious concept of “Islamic terrorism” that Euro-Americans have propagated for a thousand years. That error however reinforces hate against Islam and Muslims and sets up a vicious cycle resulting in self-fulfilling prophesies which are only profitable to the wealthy that sell weapons and extract the natural resources of conquered Muslim nations. I applaud the author’s effort to demonstrate how laws are used to punish the primary victims of hate crimes, but am sad such an obvious error crept into his work.

Some may quibble about the above observation; however, it is valid and critically important. For example, Brenton Tarrant, the New Zealand mosque shooter who killed 51 Muslims as they prayed has never been labeled a "Christian terrorist," nor were the

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crusaders, nor was George W. Bush when he launched wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Please recall the twin purposes of law established by empires above: 1) ensure the peace and 2) maintain of the power structures of the elite that rule that empire. That second purpose should elicit some questions from critically thinking people.

Fallacious assumption of eternal conflictIs this conflict between the haves and have-nots eternal?

Humans have not always warred as most people believe.

“Early scribes from Mesopotamia were able to leave behind history’s first-known preserved accounts of war.”

WARFARE IS AS OLD AS CIVILIZATION ITSELF. In fact, experts believe that the first armed conflicts were fought more than 10,000 years ago by prehistoric city-states in present day Syria, Jordan and Iraq. These early contests were likely waged over resources, goods or land. Yet, since such events predate the advent of writing by some 7,000 years, we have scant knowledge of these first fights, save for what archaeologists have been able to glean from the smallest fragments of information.”

https://militaryhistorynow.com/2014/10/13/first-blood-historys-earliest-recorded-military-conflicts

“The history of one of the earliest civilizations in the world, that of Mesopotamia, is a chronicle of nearly constant strife. Even after Sargon the Great of Akkad (r. 2334-2279 BCE) unified the region under the Akkadian Empire, war was still waged in putting down rebellions or fending off invaders. The Early Dynastic Period of Egypt (c. 3150-c. 2613 BCE) is thought to have risen from war when the Pharaoh Manes (or Menes) of the south conquered the region of northern Egypt (though this claim is disputed).”

https://www.ancient.eu/war

“War is well documented in ancient states and empires. Tracing its origins back to earlier societies has proven more challenging. Data from Stone Age Nubia (1) show that even hunting–gathering groups occasionally massacred their neighbors. Studies of more recent agricultural tribes and chiefdoms by Carneiro (2), Keeley (3), and Redmond (4) reveal high frequencies of raiding, high per

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capita death rates, torture, and headhunting. On the other hand, groups like the Mbuti and !Kung appear warless to many anthropologists. Why do some societies display armed conflict and others not?

“A recent cross-cultural study by Kelly (5), Warless Societies and the Origin of War, takes on this question and in so doing, provides a framework for prehistorians. Kelly found the highest incidence of warlessness among unsegmented societies: hunter–gatherers with no level of organization beyond the local group, relatively impermanent extended families, and little tendency to form segments like lineages and clans. While such societies may have individual homicide (and capital punishment for it), group violence is rare.

The origin of war: New 14C dates from ancient Mexico, Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus, PNAS September 30, 2003 100 (20) 11801-11805; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1934526100

That there is no evidence of war, e.g., mass murder of one group of humans by another prior to 12,000 years ago suggests that for the vast majority of pre-history humans lived in tribes that were generally cooperative.

A review of research on the first wars suggest war is of relatively recent origin in human experience. Given that homo sapiens, the first modern humans emerged between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago and wars appear to have only begun sometime in the past 12,000 years, those claiming “humans have always warred!” are almost certainly wrong.

Ethologists, socio-biologists and learning theorists have put forward strong but conflicting evidence surrounding what is often called the “nature-nurture” controversy as it relates to human aggression.

Theories of an instinctual drive towards aggressionOn the “DNA driven,” instinctual drive towards aggression side of the argument we can find strong evidence.

Konrad Lorenz in his seminal book “On Aggression,” for example suggested a genetic basis for aggression composed of “behavioral units” which in cases of inter-male aggression are usually ritualized and non-deadly. In monkey tribes initial non-lethal fighting resulting in “ritual mounting” of the subordinate by the alpha monkey. Modern human examples of this might be found in saluting superior officers, bowing before the king, and “bending the knee.”

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That however doesn’t explain war which is decidedly deadly.

Kenneth Moyer, author of The Psychobiology of Aggression (Harper & Row, 1976) identified seven circuits for mediating different kinds of aggression in the human brain.

1) Predation: A cross-species form of aggression, where predator stalks, leaps, kills and eats its prey,

2) Fear-induced: Aggression from the intended prey,

3) Inter-male: Aggression that is meant to protect territory or establish dominance,

4) Pain-induced: For example, when two rats are placed in a cage with an wire floor, administered a powerful shock simultaneously, they will immediately attack each other. This also sometimes get triggered when two or more people are forced into extremely stressful situations together.

5) Sex-related: refers to specific behavioral rituals which occur during mating, such as a praying mantis female biting the head off of a male during mating.

6) Maternal: Female defends the nest/her young, tries to distract the predator away from the nest.

7) Instrumental: Learned aggression, such as war (where soldiers don’t want to eat the enemy), prizefighters (not competing over a mate), or an attack dog that follows specific commands (not engaged in predation).

This model outlined by Professor Moyer identifies instrumental or learned aggression as the deadliest of all.

It appears we humans inherit genetic hardware for aggression, but that midbrain circuitry must be woken by environment stimuli to become manifest behaviorally, while at the same time the deadliest form of aggression, war doesn’t really directly come from the midbrain but instead is processed through neocortical (“new brain”) learning.

The qualifier “directly” was added to emphasize that whereas the underlying motivation for war may have psychobiological roots e.g., an unconscious (midbrain) need to assert dominance, (like in the monkey tribe) soldiers are supposed to follow learned commands. For example, in modern American warfare soldiers are supposed to follow Rules of Engagement which are sometimes forgotten.

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Aggression is learned, not biologically drivenAt the same time cultural anthropology studies of tribes like the Semai of Malaya, demonstrate people can live quite well without aggression.

The culture of the Semai, the peaceful people of Malaya have no government and no police. Instead, they have a non-competitive “gift economy.” Semai children are never punished or forced to do anything against their will. The games of their children are also non-competitive. The Semai culture makes no distinction between private and public. One of their primary activities on a daily basis is sharing the content of their dreams with other tribal members who happen to appear in their dream(s).

Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya - Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology, by Robert Knox Dentan, January 1, 1979

Scholarly literature proving humanities innate capacity for peace is extensive.

First perhaps we could introduce Ashley Montagu, a founding figure of peace studies in anthropology. As a humanist and biological anthropologist, Montagu rejected the pseudoscientific and aggressive stereotypes of ‘man the warrior’ and the myth of ‘innate depravity.’ Montagu argued that these labels were biologically reductionist and deterministic. Montagu also brought to light nonviolent and peaceful cultures such as the Fore, Ju/’hoansi, San, Inuit, Semai, and Australian Aboriginals, demonstrating that aggression is largely a learned behavior.

However, Sponsel reminds us that since Montagu’s original research over three decades ago, a wealth of material has been gathered, further documenting and reinforcing his rebuttals of innate human aggression. Fields other than anthropology have also contributed to the view that peace and nonviolence are normative, rather than the exception. Of note is the work of historian, Matthew Melko, who identified 52 societies with periods of peace (without any warfare) lasting more than a century. Melko points out that the emphasis on war in history creates a false impression that peace is rare.

Peace scholar David Fabbro takes the argument for peace to another level by pointing out the features of peaceful societies including egalitarian social structure, reciprocity, and nonviolent values, among others. Sponsel also points out how Bruce Bonta has validated Fabbro’s research with his extensive collection of cross-cultural data. As a result of this wealth of ethnographic

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material, Bonta posits that the worldview, values, attitudes, and customs of peaceful societies are markedly different from violent and warlike societies. In addition, these societies are committed to nonviolence conflict resolution...

https://peacefulsocieties.uncg.edu/2016/03/03/10346

Also see:http://sabrizain.org/malaya/library/semai.pdf

And yet, for all this potential for peace that humans unquestionably do have, for the past 500 years Euro-Americans have promoted and suffered endless wars.

As Oxford Professor Peter Frankopan notes:

“It was not that aggression did not exist in other societies. As numerous examples across other continents would show, any conquest could bring death and suffering on a large scale. But, periods of explosive expansion across Asia and North Africa, such as in the extraordinary first decades of the spread of Islam or during the time of the Mongol conquests, were followed by longer periods of stability, peace and prosperity. The frequency and rhythm of warfare was different in Europe to other parts of the world: no sooner would one conflict be resolved than another would flare up. Competition was brutal and relentless. In that sense seminal works like Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan were quintessential texts that explained the rise of the west. Only a European author could have concluded that the natural state of man was to be in a constant state of violence; and only a European author would have been right.”

Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads – A New History of the World, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2016 p. 253 (Peter Frankopan is a professor based at Oxford University)

Consistent with this during its entire history, the United States of America has only experienced 17 years of peace.

The founding fathers of the United States might have been able to predict this series of events if they had greater familiarity with Plato’s Republic which asserted democracies devolve into populism. In the postmodern 21st Century the democratic technocracy appears to have devolved into a Tyrannosaurus rex-like corporate profit-driven populist fascism.

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One might wonder why that is, and if there is some way, some mechanism that might be able to change the ingrained war habit in the American consciousness.

The inestimable value of alt-newsThe vast majority of mainstream news reports never mention the real causes of American forever wars, and instead support the military-industrial-media complex in bombing and starving innocents, while stealing other nations’ natural resources when and where they can.

Muslims are not the only targets of the hegemonic war machine but rather one of three primary target groups with the other two being all people of color and socialists.

In all cases a clear profit motive can be discerned. Because people of color, socialists and Muslims have been so dehumanized in Western media, killing us goes unquestioned by most Euro-American voters, is often applauded and accepted as “business as usual,” - the rallying cry of newly elected President Joseph Biden.

Joe Biden championed the Iraq war. Will that come back to haunt him now? by Mark Weisbrot, Feb. 18 2020

“Biden did vastly more than just vote for the (Iraq) war. Yet his role in bringing about that war remains mostly unknown or misunderstood by the public. When the war was debated and then authorized by the US Congress in 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate and Biden was chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.”https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war

In my opinion a good news story should answer the “why” question however the real reasons are virtually always corporate profits. Only alt-news digs out and fact-checks the details.

Legendary writer Bill Blum titled his classic work: Killing Hope, U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II that for a reason. Killing hope is exactly what the hegemonic war machine wants to do.

It is all too easy to give in to cynicism and believe nothing can change. Too many people in western democracies have just given up. If there is hope to make America and western civilization great again, it will be thanks to the investigative prowess, integrity,

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hard work and courage of the alt-news industry if combined with the collective power, good will and organizational strength of other peace-oriented organizations. It isn’t a fait accompli quite yet.

Contemporary peace organizationsOne day, God, or an alien, or the superego, spoke to two people and said in a universal language: “Be kind.” But one person heard: “Be compassionate,” whereas the other person heard: “be altruistic.” The two people, very happy and excited, tried to share their great revelations with each other but soon after started arguing about the nuances of their interpretations of those amazing and profound revelations. One thing led to another and here we are today believing that there really is a clash between civilizations, when in fact there doesn’t have to be and the whole concept is ridiculous. Meanwhile one group is starting a new cold war and everyone has to invest more and more money in thermonuclear weapons to “keep the peace,” while the poor get poorer and twenty-five thousand people starve to death every single day.

During especially the past 50 years a very large number of groups have coalesced in the USA and worldwide to advocate for peace. These groups include religious organizations, including Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and others, as well as humanists and civil and human rights advocates. All of these organizations work to help foster peace, fairness and understanding between people of all races, religions, nationalities and for the most part gender orientations.

Finding them online isn’t so difficult. Within the diverse community of peace/anti-war organizations there are quite a number of sub-groups.

However, some “peace” and alt-news sites are very deceptive and stealthily add in perspectives supporting endless Euro-American hegemonic wars disguised as “humanitarian interventions.” Some of them are brilliantly written, with barely noticeable poison pills laced throughout the stories, such that by the time one finishes reading them the person needs tissue to dry their eyes. And then the readers solemnly vow that the great wise and kind USA should definitely go in there and kill those atrocious foreign leaders and bring the poor suffering people into the loving embrace of Americanism. This kind of approach however is virtually always a mistake (with Hitler’s Nazism as the exception that proves the rule).

The bottom line on this subject is: There are many ways to help and teach, with war being the absolute worst, regardless as to its disguise. Just so starving the poor via economic sanctions helps no one and kills nine million human beings every year.

It is true those nations suffering American economic sanctions could easily end them overnight by permitting American military bases to be located in their countries and

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otherwise surrendering all forms of national sovereignty, however there is a growing axis of resistance to Euro-American hegemony in perpetuity.

On a related note, I repeatedly heard as a young child that the American hegemonic drive is the result of hubris.

According to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hubris

“English picked up both the concept of hubris and the term for that particular brand of cockiness from the ancient Greeks, who considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods. In classical Greek tragedy, hubris was often a fatal shortcoming that brought about the fall of the tragic hero. Typically, overconfidence led the hero to attempt to overstep the boundaries of human limitations and assume a godlike status, and the gods inevitably humbled the offender with a sharp reminder of his or her mortality.”

I also recall hearing this trait is often associated with adolescence and is something one can outgrow, if the person survives the affliction. And, “It’s best to make your mistakes young in life, because those mistakes made later in life are bound to have much more terrible consequences.”

Below are brief descriptions of just some of the peace/anti-war, religious, interfaith, and humanist peace-promoting organizations I like and think more people should be aware of.

Peace/Anti-War

http://anothermother.org Another Mother for Peace was founded in 1967 “to educate women to take an active role in eliminating war as a means of solving disputes between nations, people and ideologies.” AMP is a non-profit, non-partisan association. AMP encourages its members to do Peace Homework by writing to elected government officials to express their desire for peace.

http://antiwarcommittee.org Organizing against US wars across the world.

http://ccawr.org “Our effectiveness as progressive activists in the United States has long been compromised by two totems: the allegiance of many of us to the national state and our adherence to the Democratic Party. No movement has been more plagued by these twin impediments than the anti-war movement.”

http://humanclub.org “We are human ‘beings’ in search of happiness. We recognize that our happiness is linked to all our sisters and brothers. We are not a race, other than human. We are not our gender. We are not a religion, but we believe.”

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http://ronpaulinstitute.org “The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is a project of Dr. Paul’s Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (F.R.E.E.), founded in the 1970s as an educational organization. The Institute continues and expands Dr. Paul’s lifetime of public advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties at home.”

http://www.gpja.org.nz “Global Peace and Justice Auckland was formed in response to the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan post 9-11. Our goal was to bring together all peace and justice groups where we share common objectives. We are concerned about issues in Aotearoa as well as internationally.”

http://www.icbl.org/en-gb/home.aspx A global network working for a world free of landmines. HQ is in Switzerland.

http://www.ifor.org IFOR - International Fellowship of Reconciliation - Founded in response to the horrors of war in Europe, the IFOR has taken a consistent stance against war and its preparation throughout its history. Perceiving the need for healing and reconciliation in the world, the founders of IFOR formulated a vision of the human community based upon the belief that love in action has the power to transform unjust political, social, and economic structures.

https://imemc.org International Middle East Media Center

http://www.ipb.org International Peace Bureau – Eagerly working towards the prohibition of nuclear weapons, IPB is a host for the secretariat of the international global network Abolition 2000 since October of 2017. The common objective is to create a safer world for the future generations by achieving the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. HQ Berlin

https://palestinelegal.org Their mission is to bolster the Palestine solidarity movement by challenging efforts to threaten, harass and legally bully activists into silence and inaction. They provide legal advice, Know Your Rights trainings, advocacy and litigation support to college students, grassroots activists and affected communities who stand for justice in Palestine. Palestine Legal also monitors incidents of suppression to expose trends in tactics to silence Palestine activism.

http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home California's Feminist Socialist Political Party

http://www.peaceworldwide.org Mission is to promote freedom and peace for all humanity. “United We can create a world Freed from the scourges of war, oppression and persecution.”

https://www.warchild.org Child protection – providing safety from armed conflict, Education – improving access to relevant, quality education, Psychosocial – offering support to regain self-esteem and rebuild relationships with friends and families,

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Livelihoods – training in skills and business to offer a real chance at a better future, Justice – helping children and young people understand and claim their rights, and access legal assistance and justice procedures.

http://www.worldcantwait.net World Can't Wait mobilizes people living in the United States to stand up and stop war on the world, repression and torture carried out by the US government. We take action, regardless of which political party holds power, to expose the crimes of our government, from war crimes to systematic mass incarceration, and to put humanity and the planet first.

http://www.wpc-in.org World Peace Council is an anti-imperialist, democratic, independent and non-aligned international movement of mass action. It is an integral part of the world peace movement and acts in cooperation with other international and national movements. The WPC is the largest International Peace structure, based in more than 100 countries. Since its creation in 1949-50, the WPC stood for peace, disarmament and global security; for national independence, economic and social justice and development, for protection of the environment, human rights and cultural heritage; solidarity with and support of those peoples and liberation movements fighting for the independence, sovereignty and integrity of their countries, and against imperialism.

https://blackallianceforpeace.com The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. Through educational activities, organizing and movement support, organizations and individuals in the Alliance will work to oppose both militarized domestic state repression, and the policies of de-stabilization, subversion and the permanent war agenda of the U.S. state globally.

https://caat.org.uk Campaign Against Arms Trade (UK based) Contact form:

https://centeronconscience.org The Center on Conscience & War is a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of conscience, opposes military conscription, and serves all conscientious objectors to war.

https://charterforcompassion.org Charter for Compassion provides an umbrella for people to engage in collaborative partnerships worldwide.

https://childvoice.org For over 14 years, ChildVoice has been investing in the future of war-affected children and youth through sustainable interventions, research and collaboration, and advocacy.

https://cnduk.org Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Campaigns include: No to Trident, Global Abolition, No to NATO, No to Nuclear Power, No to US Missile Defence, Anti-war, Climate not Trident, Peace Education: Free Teaching Resources, Free School

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Workshops, Free Teacher Training, Testimonials, School Speaker Volunteers, CND Peace Education.

https://front.moveon.org Whether it’s supporting a candidate, passing legislation, or changing our culture, MoveOn members are committed to an inclusive and progressive future. We envision a world marked by equality, sustainability, justice, and love. And we mobilize together to achieve it. Progressive Partner Organizations - MoveOn's Progressive Partner program allows like-minded progressive groups—like yours—to use MoveOn’s petition.

https://globalexchange.org Global Exchange is an international Human Rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world.

https://iacenter.org Information Activism Center - Information, activism & resistance to U.S. militarism, war & corporate greed, linking with struggles against racism & oppression within the United States.

https://ivsgb.org International Voluntary Service - The International Voluntary Service is a peace organisation working for the sustainable development of local and global communities throughout the world. We are a leading charity which has existed since 1931, involving volunteers in international exchanges at home and abroad (international voluntary projects).

https://masspeaceaction.org Massachusetts Peace Action began in the 1980s as Massachusetts Freeze, an affiliate of the nationwide Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. In the late 1980s, Mass Freeze joined the national Freeze Campaign in its merger with national SANE: The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. In 1993, we became Massachusetts Peace Action.

Disarmament work while broadening our focus to include advocating for non-military solutions for international issues, educating voters on peace issues, and more.

Through grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, and community education, our priority issues for 2013 and 2014 are to reorganize the military budget to fund jobs, the environment and human needs; to prevent war with Iran and end the war in Afghanistan; and to abolish nuclear weapons.

https://militaryfamiliesspeakout.com Military Families Speak Out [MFSO] is an organization of military families across the US and around the world who are opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have a loved one currently serving in the military, who has served in the military since 9/11 or who has died as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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https://nonviolence.com A non-profit organisation with a mission to inspire, motivate and engage people to learn how to solve conflicts peacefully. HQ in Switzerland.

https://peace1.wordpress.com Minnesota Peace Action Coalition

https://peacealliance.org The Peace Alliance empowers civic action toward a culture of peace.

https://peacenow.org.il/en Peace Now states that the continued military and civilian control of the West Bank and over three million Palestinians that reside within it, jeopardizes the fundamental existence and the democratic character of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

https://pugwash.org Pugwash seeks a world free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Offices are in Rome, Geneva, London and many other locations worldwide.

https://resist.org Resist is a foundation that supports people’s movements for justice and liberation. We redistribute resources back to frontline communities at the forefront of change while amplifying their stories of building a better world.

https://sanctionskill.org/petition - Global petition to end economic sanctions.

https://soaw.org/home Close the School of the Americas.

https://wagingnonviolence.org Waging Nonviolence is an independent, non-profit media platform dedicated to providing original reporting and expert analysis of social movements around the world. We believe that when ordinary people organize, they have incredible power and are the drivers of social change — not politicians, billionaires or corporations.

https://www.warchild.org https://warchildusa.org War Child works toward a world in which no child's life is torn apart by war. Armed conflict is a reality for millions of children today. War Child is committed to supporting these children to overcome their experiences, and have a real chance at a better future.

https://worldbeyondwar.org World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace

https://www.answercoalition.org Founded just three days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) initiated the massive U.S. antiwar movement opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the months prior to March 19, 2003.

https://www.antiwar.com - Antiwar.com is the biggest anti-interventionist, pro-peace website on the net, with over 85,000 unique visitors per day.

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https://www.codepink.org CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.

https://www.consciencecanada.ca to increase Canadians’ awareness of the connection between taxes and war and promote conscientious objection to militarism and war; and to support creative non-violent conflict prevention and resolution.

https://www.fcnl.org The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is a national, nonpartisan Quaker organization that lobbies Congress for peace, justice, and environmental stewardship. We bring together tens of thousands of people—Quakers and friends—who share a belief in the power of relationship-building to advance the world we seek.

https://www.nationalsjp.org Students for justice in Palestine.

https://www.peaceaction.org We Are Today's Peace Movement - Peace Action works for smarter approaches to global problems. If we want to address problems like war, the nuclear threat, poverty, climate change, and terrorism – the U.S. needs to work together, cooperatively, with other nations. We also need to overcome the partisan politics and divisive rhetoric that often drown out alternatives to war. By getting people and communities around the country involved, we build the political will needed to break through that deadlock. Our success comes from empowering people to engage in foreign policy issues like no other organization.

https://www.peacejusticestudies.org Peace & Justice Studies Association - International Peace Research Association Affiliation.

https://www.stopwar.org.uk Stop the War was founded in September 2001 in the weeks following 9/11, when George W. Bush announced the “war on terror”. Stop the War has since been dedicated to preventing and ending the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere.

https://www.svenskafreds.se/om-oss/english The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (Svenska Freds- och Skiljedomsföreningen) is the world’s oldest and Sweden’s largest peace organization. We are an association for people who believe that conflicts can be resolved without violence, and that war can be prevented through collaboration, economic means and diplomacy. We work towards sustainable peace by spreading knowledge, forming public opinion and influencing decision makers.

https://www.unacpeace.org United National Antiwar Coalition

https://www.warresisters.org The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States, A pacifist group with a radical, secular orientation.

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https://www.whistleblowers.org/mission-history National Whistleblower Center - NWC’s mission is to support whistleblowers in their efforts to expose and help prosecute corruption and other wrongdoing around the world.

https://www.wri-irg.org/en War Resisters’ International - a global network of grassroots antimilitarist and pacifist groups, working together for a world without war.

Jewish Peace Organizations

https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org Jewish Voice for Peace opposes anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry and oppression. JVP seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem; security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians; a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on principles established in international law; an end to violence against civilians; and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East.

https://www.onevoicemovement.org We believe that a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an end to occupation is not only a moral imperative, but an existential priority for Palestinians, Israelis and the international community alike. We believe in the transformative power of active listening, true empathy, community organizing, nonviolent protest, youth empowerment and championing democratic values and norms at every opportunity. We are pragmatic and solutions-oriented, and see localization, grassroots leadership, and diversity as a source of strength. Our partners and allies are organizations and individuals who share these values.

https://www.allmep.org/about-us-allmep Alliance for Middle East Peace - ALLMEP secures and scales funding to radically expand trust-building interactions between Israelis and Palestinians. We provide capacity-building support and visibility to amplify the voices and impact of our member organizations in the region. We connect individuals and groups to create a critical mass that live and act in support of peace. We add stability in times of crisis, foster cooperation that increases impact, and build an environment conducive to peace over the long term.

Christian Peace Organizations

https://www.anglicanpeacemaker.org.uk The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship is a body of people within the Anglican Communion who reject war as a means of solving international disputes, and believe that peace and justice should be sought through non-violent means.

https://www.catholicworker.org Catholic Workers live a simple lifestyle in community, serve the poor, and resist war and social injustice. Most are grounded in the Gospel, prayer, and the Catholic faith, although some houses on this list state that they are interfaith. Each Catholic Worker house is independent and there is no "Catholic Worker

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headquarters.” United States: (160 linked communities), International: (27 communities)

https://www.church-and-peace.org/en The teachings of the Sermon on the Mount are at the core of Church and Peace’s vision. The network’s overarching commitment to active Gospel nonviolence finds expression in various forms of peace church community, taking inspiration in particular from the Early Church, the Anabaptist movement and the Historic Peace Churches.

https://www.fcnl.org The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is a national, nonpartisan Quaker organization that lobbies Congress for peace, justice, and environmental stewardship. We bring together tens of thousands of people—Quakers and friends—who share a belief in the power of relationship-building to advance the world we seek.

https://www.disciplespeace.org Founded in 1935 at the International Convention of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in San Antonio, Texas, DPF began with 75 dedicated individuals, and is now one of the largest independent but integrally related organizations within the denomination. It is also the oldest existing Peace Fellowship of any denomination in the United States.

https://epfnational.org Episcopal Peace Fellowship - Advancing peace and justice around the world.

http://www.ifor.org IFOR International Fellowship of Reconciliation - Founded in response to the horrors of war in Europe, the IFOR has taken a consistent stance against war and its preparation throughout its history. Perceiving the need for healing and reconciliation in the world, the founders of IFOR formulated a vision of the human community based upon the belief that love in action has the power to transform unjust political, social, and economic structures. Today IFOR has branches, groups, and affiliates in over 40 countries on all continents.

https://www.lutheranpeace.org Studying and acting on the biblical vision of Shalom: peace with justice, welcoming community, wholeness, Exploring the potential of active nonviolence, its unique, untold capacity for bringing about lasting change, working together to challenge violence, war and militarism, lifting up alternatives to violence in the family, on the streets, in the media and among nations.

www.mcc.org Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches, shares God's love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice.

https://www.mpf.org.uk The Methodist Peace Fellowship (MPF) is an association of Methodist pacifists within the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR), part of the

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International Fellowship of Reconciliation, MPF was founded in 1933 to inform and unite Methodists who covenanted together “to renounce war and all its works and ways.”

https://www.onearthpeace.org The OEP community is committed to full inclusion of people of all identities, and to the work of racial justice and anti-racism transformation. This open welcome is core to the values, vision, and mission that guide all our work. Everyone from "radical disciples," to "spiritual but not religious," to "nones and dones" find a warm home at OEP to do your work for justice and peace.

https://paxchristi.net Pax Christi International is a Catholic peace movement with 120-member organizations worldwide that promotes peace, respect of human rights, justice & reconciliation throughout the world. Grounded in the belief that peace is possible and that vicious cycles of violence and injustice can be broken, Pax Christi International addresses the root causes & destructive consequences of violent conflict and war. (HQ Brussels).

https://pcpj.org Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace and Justice: Nonviolence, Economic Justice, Racial Justice, Gender Equality, Creation Care, Spirituality, Politics.

https://www.presbypeacefellowship.org Our commitment to those committed to nonviolence and justice: In all instances, we seek to partner and make common cause with those who live the values of nonviolence and justice that we read as God’s most fundamental message woven throughout our scripture… Our commitment to stand with the oppressed: Our reading of scripture compels us to stand with those who are oppressed, beaten down and pushed to the margins of society. We listen carefully to them and seek to be their partners and advocates in their struggle to “loose the bonds of injustice and let the oppressed go free.”

Muslim Peace Organizations

https://mvpr.org Muslin Voice for Peace and Reconciliation - We are Muslim men and women promoting world peace, human rights, compassionate justice and religious reconciliation. We speak up for innocent men, women and children, regardless of their faith. We seek to help all who are unjustly treated due to bigotry and prejudice. We work collaboratively with inter-faith groups and other non-government organizations, seeking to be a Muslim voice of peace and reason in the midst of civil unrest and war.

https://ing.org We are Muslim men and women promoting world peace, human rights, compassionate justice and religious reconciliation. We speak up for innocent men, women and children, regardless of their faith. We seek to help all who are unjustly treated due to bigotry and prejudice. We work collaboratively with inter-faith groups and other non-government organizations, seeking to be a Muslim voice of peace and reason in the midst of civil unrest and war.

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https://muslims4peace.org Established in 2001, Muslims for Peace is an organization that aims to bridge people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds through interfaith activities, like presentations, seminars, and discussions. We believe that educating each other about our differences is the best way to interconnect people, increase tolerance towards each other, and facilitate the peacemaking process all over the world. We spread the message that Islam stands for non-violence and developing a better understanding of Islam among all the people of the world, Muslim and non-Muslims. Executive Director: Fatima Abdi.

https://arf-int.org The Asian Muslim Action Network (AMAN) is a unifying force for peace and social action in Asia. Its innovative programs have affected change and bridged political and religious divides since its inception in 1990. Its unique approach engages intellectuals, political and religious leaders, associations and activists of all faiths in dialogue that help resolve conflict and promote peace. To build understanding and solidarity among Muslims and other faith communities in Asia and develop programs that lead to people’s empowerment, human rights, justice and peace.

Buddhist Peace Organizations

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) is a nonsectarian international network of engaged Buddhists participating in various forms of nonviolent social activism and environmentalism.

Interfaith Organizations

https://www.rfp.org Where religions work together for a peaceful world. Religions for Peace is where the world’s religions join together to ensure that all people enjoy peace, harmony, and prosperity. We see the world’s challenges and understand they can benefit from an interfaith, innovative, and inclusive response. Our 90 national and 6 regional Interreligious Councils, or “IRCs,” bring together, not only the vast influence and resources of all faith traditions, but also their spiritual commitment to achieve solutions that leave no one behind. 1) Respect religious differences and seek to honour the identity and community of each religious tradition; 2) Leverage the existing spiritual, moral and social assets of the world’s religious communities to act on deeply held and widely shared values; 3) Build and/or strengthen representative, sustainable multi-religious mechanisms, co-owned by religious institutions and communities; 4) Partner local, national, regional and global multi-religious structures, with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental civil society actors. The International Secretariat is based in Japan, Kenya, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States and serves the World Council to enact our Strategic Plan.

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Humanist Organizations

https://americanhumanist.org/key-issues/promoting-peace We are committed to building an inclusive America grounded in an embrace of reason, ethics, scientific inquiry, and compassion- rather than religious dogma.

https://humanistglobal.charity Humanist Global Charity is a 501c3 non-profit in California. We’ve worked in 49 nations since 2013 - Vision: We work toward a world with humanist values, that respects science, secular education, sustainability, kindness, peace & democracy. Mission: We provide secular support to at-risk populations internationally, via educational opportunities, technological solutions, health assistance and small business grants. We also fund women’s collectives, orphans, safe houses, helplines, and we offer internships in Africa & India Development, and Global Peace Strategies.

https://humanists.international The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) represents more than one hundred Humanist organizations from more than 40 countries. As Humanists we believe that human beings can give meaning to their own lives without appeal to gods or the supernatural, and we work for the development of a more humane society based on reason and compassion. Humanists recognize that war and violence are human problems. Wars are started by humans and they can only be ended by humans. That is why throughout history and across the world Humanists have worked to build peace. For example, the ancient Hindu epic of the Mahabharata mentions a Humanist teacher (of the materialist school of Carvaka) who is put to death for criticizing the king’s warmongering. In the West, the Epicureans of ancient Greece and Rome argued that genuine peace must come, in the words of Lucretius, “By words, not arms”. These ancient Humanists recognized that genuine peace is more than just the absence of war between nations; genuine peace requires tolerance between communities, respect between individuals, and, ultimately, peace and harmony within the human heart.

https://www.prio.org The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) conducts research on the conditions for peaceful relations between states, groups and people.

ConclusionsRegardless as to the origin of the belief that humans should really be kind, compassionate, altruistic and good, and the different niche markets each of the above peace-oriented organizations primarily appeals to, they all promote essentially the same thing: Peace between people, cultures and nations.

Unfortunately to my knowledge they are not inter-linking and consequently the world is being split in two again, the number of endless wars is increasing, and within many

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nations “civil” conflicts are rapidly increasing and becoming more and more violent possibly due to ever-increasing wealth gaps within and between nations.

Simultaneously the alternative news sites that investigates and reports on the weaponization of all things and balkanization of all nations has suffered savage site ranking suppression on the world’s monolith search engine, Google.com

The above observations reinforce the notion that the have-nots, which is the vast majority of people on earth, really need something like this Great Linking so that peace organizations and alt-news can begin to have a fair voice in the world marketplace of ideas and voters can have better information upon which to make decisions regarding who they should vote for. To my knowledge the only anti-war candidate for the 2020 American presidential election was Tulsi Gabbard yet due to low poll results, on March 19, 2020 dropped out of the 2020 election and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, a known promoter of war.

Joe Biden championed the Iraq war. Will that come back to haunt him now? by Mark Weisbrot, Feb. 18 2020

“Biden did vastly more than just vote for the (Iraq) war. Yet his role in bringing about that war remains mostly unknown or misunderstood by the public. When the war was debated and then authorized by the US Congress in 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate and Biden was chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations. Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war

The alternative of course, thermonuclear war, not a happy or wise conclusion to the story of life on earth.

Unlike most feature stories with nice happy endings, this one has a simple request:

Please be so kind as to copy and paste the following docs on a dedicate page on your site:

Peace Orgs Article w descr_links Alt-News Article w discr_links

Please consider changing the titles of the articles and some of the content. Extra site-ranking points are added for original titles and articles. A preponderance of SEO experts report “out-links” doesn’t hurt a site as long as they are not to “spam” sites. Google’s

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site ranking algorithms are somewhat opaque however, but some general rules are usually fairly consistent.

Downloaded from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank#/media/File:PageRank-hi-res.png CC BY-SA 2.5

Given that Google is very much a representative and promoter of the hegemonic war machine:

At the event in Washington, Walker, the chief legal officer, said Google was pursuing higher security certifications so it could work more closely with the Defense Department on other projects. “I want to be clear,” he said. “We are a proud American company.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2019-google-military-contract-dilemma

It’s probably best if this “Great Linking” has no central nodes like the above page rank illustration. Any central node will be neutralized somehow. Thus, please feel free to add links to my collection provided they don’t subtly or otherwise promote conflict and war, and delete links you might not feel entirely comfortable with. It’s also probably a good idea to not even use the phrase “Great Linking,” as that makes it too easy to suppress the growth of this concept. There are a thousand other phrases that can be used to describe the same thing.

Here is probably a better design:

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https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/FreeDownload/Asymmetrical-Star-A-4th-grade-Geometry-Project-1227519

It’s asymmetric and consequently it is more difficult to write an algorithm to neutralize it.

There is an axis I’d call resistance to Euro-American hegemony, yet it’s not a focused center because of divergent political and socio-economic interests and priorities. It’s more of an “axis of resistance,” even though that name is used by other groups as well. Personally, I think those other groups are innocents that are only trying to defend themselves, but this is obviously a contentious issue area. In any case, the individuals behind the Euro-American war machine have to grow up and learn how to play well with others. Killing and torturing millions of people is not the road to making friends and influencing people. Please remember: Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death,” and I’m only trying to prevent WWIII here.

As for me, I’m at retirement age and only put this Great Linking concept together because I have empathy for the victims and surviving victim family members of hegemonic wars, and experienced the extreme violence of Empire too many times in my life in too many countries. This idea is so obviously critically important I’m astonished no

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one’s done it before. What I’m suggesting is all peace-oriented organizations move beyond their niches and link with others – even at the far end of the same spectrum.

Also, I very much like the idea of leaving a beautiful, peaceful, ecologically sound planet to future generations, as compared to a frozen radioactive burned-out cinder.

Some of my other recent writings and my CV can be found at:

https://thegreatlinking.org

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.