Tuesday, August 29, 2006

On the Horns of a Dilemma

I. Suppose I told you that I had a dilemma - that in the process of visiting in the land of Blog, I had befriended some Muslims. They seemed like decent enough folk most of the time, but every once in a while (and increasingly), they got off on a rant about the West.

What if they were becoming increasingly convinced that the US and her allies were the Great Satan and had to be stopped? What if they were even talking about/advocating deadly violence? Nuclear weaponry was even mentioned!

What is the right thing for me to do? I imagine that they're just blowing off steam, that they're angry or scared by our actions and so they're responding by mouthing off about violent means to stop the US. Maybe they're even joking. I'm sure they're not seriously advocating violence (even though they assure me they are).

Do I call the feds and turn them in?

II. What if, instead of the US, they were directing their anger towards some other entity - Israel or Morocco?

Should I call the authorities and alert them to their calls for violence? Or are they most likely just kidding or blowing off steam?

III. What if, instead of Muslims, it was Christians? And what if, instead of advocating nuclear attacks against the US, they were calling for nuclear attacks against Iran or Lebanon?

Should I call in the authorities and turn them in? What's my civic and moral duty?

40 comments:

Michael Westmoreland-White said...

Turn them in. You cannot take chances that someone making such threats is not serious. Further, making those threats on a blog could give some other nutcase with connections the idea.

Ontario Wanderer said...

If they were "real Muslims" or "real Christians" they would not be going on nuclean rants. Neither religion supports such actions.

If they were from the U.S., to whom would you turn them in to? It would appear that the government is more fanatic than most of the citizens I know.

Just my opinion.

Dan Trabue said...

I'm wondering if I won't get any answers from those on the Right on this post?

It's been my experience that many of our friends to the Right don't like to answer questions that make them uncomfortable. Too easy to just ignore the questions instead.

Larry Who said...

I would pray and seek God. Most rants and threats by others are usually back by some principality or demonic power causing us fear. Right?

So, if the Lord is truly my Friend, shouldn't He know what I should do?

But then again, that would mean that I would have to trust Him more than our governments, more than the UN and more than the circumstances facing me.

Tim Abbott said...

One more from the Left: The not so hypothetical hateful burr under your saddle has been deliberatively provocative and taken advantage of the spirit of dialogue and engagement with those of differing perspectives that you have encouraged at your site. How else can one interpret such statements like nuclear weapons are God given and therefore we have sanction to use them for whatever cause we deem just and likewise divinely ordained? This illustrates, at the very least, a warped theological understanding of what Christians believe are the works of God. The Christian God gave humanity choices, not nukes, and with these choices consequences for our salvation.

But logic and theology are not driving the comments you have experienced and the taunting you have endured. The way of peace is littered with hate speech from those it threatens.

You have two choices in this actual case. Continue to turn the other cheek, treat him humanely and be a patient example of how to live humanely in these turbulent times, or disengage and cut him off as comment graffiti and not worth the effort. Either path is open, as is the case with all the choices we face in this world.

Wasp Jerky said...

White people aren't terrorists silly. Except for all these folks.

Dan Trabue said...

Thanks, Tim and Larry. Funny stuff, Wasp.

rusty shakelford said...

There is no shortage from Muslims and liberals who want to see the US fall in one way or another, so I suppose just kick back and do nothing.

PS. Mark was partly right. We should employ a mass bombing technique, something like carpet bombing. Then give up on occupation. Tell the bombed that when we feel the climate is becoming threatened to us we will repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat as necessary. This will give the citizens who are not terrorist a reason to take control of there own country.

D.Daddio Al-Ozarka said...

EASY answer, Dan.

If they are individuals who you think possibly have a nuke in their suitcase, trunk, or whatever and are advocating--encouraging--threatening to use them against a sovereign nation--YES! Turn the terrorist bastards in!

On the other hand, I don't know of any Chirstian who has a nuke in their trunk or whatever--nor do I know of any who would advocate using them against a sovereign nation apart from careful consideration by the GOVERNMENT--the MILITARY!

I don't know of anyone--besides Muslims--who HAVE threatened another sovereign nation that had not already threatened it with nuclear annihilation.

Your whole post is the strawman you accuse us of, Dan.

It's dishonest and no Christian would have posted it without apologizing for ot.

The argument doesn't fit in the least and you know it!

If, as I suspect, you happen to be taliking about me and some others who agree with me on my nuke scenario, go ahead! Turn us in!

I"ll meet the FBI at the door and take them to the suitcase that holds the nuclear device you somehow have conjured up for me!

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID.

What kind of Christian would sit back and allow another nation that has proven itself to follow through on its violent threats towards another free nation threaten to annihilate that free nation without standing up to violently oppose the nation that has made the threat?

The difference in our Christian beliefs is that you folks forget that Jesus was not just a man--He IS the God of the WHOLE Bible!

You can't accept Christ without also accepting the just and Jealous God He is!

D.Daddio Al-Ozarka said...

"The Christian God gave humanity choices, not nukes, and with these choices consequences for our salvation. "

Yeah--and he also ORDERED His people to destroy other nations!

You folks don't know God! How could you know Jesus without knowing GOD?

Dan Trabue said...

Daddio said:

"I don't know of anyone--besides Muslims--who HAVE threatened another sovereign nation that had not already threatened it with nuclear annihilation."

Daddio also testified against himself, saying:

"I'm in no way joking when I advocate using the bomb!"

And:

"I hope we wake up next Friday to news of a strike in Iran"

And:

"What I'm saying is that Iran is WAAAAAYYYYYY past due for a ass-kickin'.

A few well placed nukes would bring peace. If not, a few more certainly would!"

You're advocating dropping nukes. Frankly, D, you sound unbalanced. I don't really think you are.

I think you're digging the "power" of blogging and saying stupid outrageous comments that not even most of your comrades agree with just to get a response.

BUT you are having a few say, "yeah, a little nuking would be a good thing." You're all either unbalanced or just out of touch with reality and morality.

Now, it seems you'll start whining about "first amendment rights! freedom of speech," when you don't really like the first amendment all that much anyway. You certainly don't want any Muslims talking about nuking the US, right?

We're living in a new age, right? When we have to take terrorist threats seriously, right? That's why we can lock up muslims without charges or trials because they MIGHT be a terrorist, we have a hunch, right? Isn't that what you advocate?

He who lives by paranoia and fear, goes to jail by paranoia and fear, brother.

Anonymous said...

Dan, You seem to suffer from paranoia and fear of your own fellow believers of the same faith that you profess. Either you don't care much for the faith you profess or have no confidence it it's power to transform lives. Marilyn

Dan Trabue said...

Could it be, Miss Marilyn, that I care so much about my faith and my savior that I take offense when "christians" call for nuclear holocausts, all the while suggesting God would be pleased?

I neither fear nor am paranoid about sad little men who hide behind nuclear devastation, whether they claim to be Muslim or Christian, because by their violence they indicate where their allegiance lies.

D.Daddio Al-Ozarka said...

Listen to yourself, Dan! And you want to call me unhinged?

(Sigh....!)

LOL!

Strawman, Dan! You know it, too! Pleas don't EVER accuse me of using a strawman argument again.

And what is all this I read regularly from you accusing your brethren of bearing false witness?

You plainly implied in this post that I (You know who you were referring to and everyone else does as well)advocated nuking them myself....on my own....as an individual.

THAT"S CERTAINLY bearing false witness!

Apolgy, Dan? I"ll be waiting. But know that I forgive your false testimony anyway. It's pretty innefective. Don't mean a dang thang!

Michael Westmoreland-White said...

I fail to see any moral difference between deciding to nuke someone myself and advocating others to do it. Conspiracy to commit murder draws the same legal penalty, doesn't it? Why wouldn't conspiracy to commit nuclear terrorism--even if advocating that the government do it (state terrorism by definition)?

Suppose D.Daddio and others ARE only talking about what they WISH our government would do and have no intentions of trying to act on their own. But then suppose others read their blogs and say, "Hey, I have a cousin who works with Security Co. X. They've gotta contract with Russia to decommission some old Soviet-era nukes. I should him some of these blog posts and he agrees that taking out Tehran would be a good thing. Maybe Damascus, too. Now, you know the feds are wimps. They don't have the stones to do the necessary. So, maybe if we could raise the money, my cousin could pay off some folk and we could take out that Israel-hating Ahmadinejad and all those Iranian Ayatollah-types clean."

Wouldn't that be the nuclear equivalent of "inciting to riot?"

I say call the Feds. People advocating such ideas may not be terrorists themselves, but sometimes they give ideas to nutcases like Timothy McVeigh. They should, at the least, be watched.

When Pat Robertson advocated the assassination of Hugo Chavez, I wrote the FBI and asked what they were doing about it. After all, only a few years earlier this "Christian" had talked on the air about needing to nuke "Foggy Bottom," which is the Washington nickname for the State Department!! And only Muslims make such threats?

I mean, I know Americans don't read history, but this is practically current events!

D.Daddio Al-Ozarka said...

Michael--you're the one who's unhinged (the stupidity of your argument proves it!)

I don't think I've mentioned Tehran. Or Damascus.

Are you sure you're on the same planet as the rest of us, Michael?

Besides, isn't immoral to misrepresent someone? I mean--think about it! You want the Feds to come take a father away from his children? You want someone to be lovcked up for speaking his mind?

If so, the leftist blogosphere would become non-existent!

Is that the levity you espouse, Mr. Leveller Man?

Or have you dropped the leveller label because you see, yourself, that you are not fair?

Dan Trabue said...

Daddio, neither Michael nor I have advocated locking anyone up for what they're saying. I've pointed out and Michael has agreed that when people espouse violence, they may be worth investigating.

YOU would think so in the case of a Muslim espousing violence. In fact, you think because Iranian leader Ahmadinejad has used his "free speech" to advocate the destruction of Israel, that we should drop nuclear bombs on Iran.

So which is it: Do people have the right to talk about bombing other countries or not? You can't have it both ways (ie, it's okay for ME to espouse nuclear holocausts but it's not okay for HIM to do so).

Dan Trabue said...

And please, Daddio, spare us the "I'm innocent" routine. We all know that you and some of your cohorts have been freely advocating some usage of nuclear bombs on some peoples. Don't claim that we're misrepresenting you, it just leads credence to the "he's unbalanced" opinion people form about others when they say one thing clearly and repeatedly, then claim, "I never!".

D.Daddio Al-Ozarka said...

"So which is it: Do people have the right to talk about bombing other countries or not? You can't have it both ways (ie, it's okay for ME to espouse nuclear holocausts but it's not okay for HIM to do so)."

Dan--I really thought you had more sense than that! What a rediculous thing to say! Verging on insane!

Yep, I do espouse using the nukes that our enemy feels confident we won;t use. I'm guilty of that! Never once did I imply I was not!

What's more unbalanced? Advocating the use of nukes against a country openly attempting to develope a nuke for the specific purpose of wiping nations off the map or espousing allowing that nation to do so?

I'll let the reasonable people in the blogosphere be the judge of that!

You really make me laugh, sometimes--with your apparent lack of a sense of humor and all!

D.Daddio Al-Ozarka said...

Have you informed on me yet? LOL!

I've not seen any black ops helicopters flying around yet! LOL!

(Sigh!)

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I wonder what you and the leveller do to make a living. Seeing as how much time you devote to blogging and rebel rousing about peace. I'm retired and I sure don't spend as much time reading blogs as you seem to spend roaming around propagandizing. Are some left wing organizations paying you?
I guess you are saving so much money bicycling that you can have all this spare time.

Dan Trabue said...

We both work for a living. Speaking for myself, I blog because I like to write and it's good exercise but even moreso, I blog because it is my response to a fallen culture.

Our culture is lost, on the skids, living unsustainably and unredeemably. We are making choices and policies that will hurt others, including my children and others who come after us.

We need a revival, if I may choose religious terms. We need to repent - turn around and change directions - and breathe fresh air into our way of life.

My tribe's way of thinking is a minority one in our culture and therefore we have no representation in the political world. The Dems don't represent me and certainly the Republicans don't either.

So, while I vote and try to influence the political process where I can, I understand that I'm a minority and will likely never have a voice in the mainstream political world, and so I blog to make my case to folk like you and anyone else out there willing to read. I take my breaks in the day - and make some - to make a little time for doing this as missionary work, of sorts.

Not that I expect to make anyone change their mind, but I do hope to at least let the word get out that there are those of us out here who think that, for instance:

1. We're living unsustainably and cannot keep living the way we are
2. Because we're living unsustainably, there are violent and oppressive results
3. That there are alternatives to war that work and ought to be explored, whether or not we choose to reject war
4. We ought to explore these alternatives because war can't possibly hope to be either moral nor workable in the real world
5. Life is good, this creation is great, my community is pretty cool and God is wonderful

Things like that.

Thanks for asking.

madcapmum said...

I guess you are saving so much money bicycling that you can have all this spare time.

Meow.

rusty shakelford said...

umm since when was it illegal for the US to bomb Iran or any other similar country. All we have to do is formally declare war and bombs away. Why would it be illegal for anyone to wish the US would step up aggression against its enemies. Dan is always saying how this war is illegal and I guess according to him all wars fought by US are illegal.
As far as the Lords roll in nations going to war I think Romans 13 can clear alot of things up.

Dan Trabue said...

It is against our laws to:

"To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;"

And,

"The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited."

Advocating "turning towns into craters" with nuclear WMDs is against our laws, Rusty. I don't think that all wars fought by us (or by others) are illegal according to the laws of those nations, but using nukes is for us according to our laws.

Do you disagree or are you advocating breaking our laws?

rusty shakelford said...

all things with military value are legal targets. if the enemy is incorporating civilians into its military plans then they are combatants and hence lawful targets.
I would like to see your source. The defense of a building or a thing is irrelevant. Military value is everything.
I disagree with you regardless of you interpretation of the law. War is not illegal.

you should google LOAC or Laws of Armed Combat for more information.

Dan Trabue said...

My source is Laws of War:
Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907, part of the Geneva Convention.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/
avalon/lawofwar/hague04.htm

The Geneva Convention, as I'm sure you know, is a treaty signed into law by the Congress. It has the weight of law for us.

You misrepresent me when you suggest that I'm saying "War is illegal." I've said clearly that dropping a nuclear bomb on a city is illegal, according to our laws. Had we not "won" WWII, we'd have been charged with war crimes for what we did at Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden.

When you say, "f the enemy is incorporating civilians into its military plans" - there was no military target at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Those cities were destroyed for purely terroristic reasons (and, yes, I fully understand the "humane" reasons given for bombing civilians - "to save lives ultimately").

We wanted to let Japan know that we were willing and able to utterly destroy their entire country.

Dan Trabue said...

As to the Laws of Armed Combat, I'm generally familiar with them and my brother in Christ, Michael, having been in the military before becoming a CO, is even more familiar with them. They do not supercede the Geneva Conventions.

rusty shakelford said...

LOAC exists inside the confides of the Geneva conventions. It is impossible to follow LOAC and break the Geneva conventions.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are great examples of when it is ok to bomb civilian centers. Both cities where manufacturing centers for the Japanese war machine. Therefore they were legal targets, with military value.

Michael Westmoreland-White said...

rusty shackleford said: " Both cities [Hiroshima & Nagasaki] where manufacturing centers for the Japanese war machine. Therefore they were legal targets, with military value."

This is wrong on several counts. 1) When targetting military manufacturing centers, one is obligated to use precision weapons and take care not to endanger civilians. That's impossible with nukes and for this reason alone, most of America's top military brass tried to talk Truman out of it--including Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley, Fleet Admiral William Leahy, and Sec. of Navy Forrestal.

At the beginning of WWII, most U.S. voices, military, religious, and political, argued against British Air Commander "Bomber" Harris' copying of Nazi bombing strategies and targetting civilian cities instead of military installations. By the end of the war, the U.S. was doing it too, but several U.S. voices were still critical of Dresden.

2) Hiroshima had a small manufacturing center, but it was outside the city. Ground zero was at the city center--always out off limits via the Principle of Discrimination.

3) Nagasaki had no military value at all. It was chosen because cloud cover shrouded the military target and because they wanted to test a different type of nuclear weapon. Nagasaki was a simple mass murder, pure and simple. This was the conclusion of many WWII U.S. generals who wrote about this in their memoirs, too.

The entire Mutual Assured Destruction strategy of the Cold War, whereby both the Soviets and the U.S. targeted each other's cities and held each other's children hostage to mega-death, was illegal under both international and U.S. law. This has been written about numerous times--even by high ranking military lawyers.

C'mon Dude, they used to teach this stuff in high school and certainly both basic training and officer training. I had it in OTC back in 1980.

Ignorance is not bliss.

Dan Trabue said...

And I'll gladly remind you of what CONSERVATIVES were saying about our nuclear holocaust:

The conservative magazine Human Events contended that America's atomic destruction of Hiroshima might be morally "more shameful" and "more degrading" than Japan's "indefensible and infamous act of aggression" at Pearl Harbor.

A 1947 editorial in the Chicago Tribune, at the time a leading conservative voice, claimed that President Truman and his advisers were guilty of "crimes against humanity" for "the utterly unnecessary killing of uncounted Japanese."

A 1959 National Review article matter-of-factly stated: "The indefensibility of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is becoming a part of the national conservative creed."

Marty said...

Rusty, if you and Daddio and others of your mindset support the Bush Administration's policies so much, then why aren't you rushing off to join up and continue to re-up as long as your needed and encouraging your family members and friends to do the same? I don't understand why you are allowing so few to shoulder the burdens. It's disgraceful. The military is broken. They are deployed, redeployed, extended, stop lossed and not getting the care they deserve when they do finally get out. Shame on you for yapping your jaws and sitting on your arses and playing at being patriotic. I'm sick of you people.

Sorry for the rant Dan. But my son's life is at stake here.

Eleutheros said...

Dan:"1. We're living unsustainably and cannot keep living the way we are
2. Because we're living unsustainably, there are violent and oppressive results"

I've read the comments on this thread carefully and I haven't enjoyed them as I usually do the conversations here. I've no problem with a little bare knuckles now and again, it isn't that. It's that as I read comment after comment, I said to myself "Moot, moot, moot."

The above clip from Dan's sums it all up for me. (Although perhaps not the numbered points after those first two.)

Are we God's chosen people and He has rigged up circumstances so that we can stuff our fat faces with the world's goods with both pudgey fists and become obese, drive around in tanks, and live in great tacky palaces? If that were so, then God is a great cosmic Moron.

It is our insatiable, unsustainable, ever accelerating greed that has made the world the unstable place it is today.

I have quite come to understand how most of the world would hate our collective guts. We swill down the vast majority of the world's resources leaving the legitimate owners of those resources often in abject poverty and want .... and for what? To feed our children? To promote a benevolent culture? To make a secure and sustainable future?

Not a bit of it! We rape the world to drive around in 8000 lb vehicles and climate control 4000 sq ft houses that we leave idle while we go about our Lilliputian tasks which accomplish nothing for the folk of the world.

Turn them in or no? Moot. Completely moot. Until we come to grips with our consumerism, it would make very little difference in the end.

And that end is slavering like a wolf at the window even as we speak.

Dan Trabue said...

Thanks for the comments, E. Marty, God be with you and your son. You can speak your mind anywhere and anyway and it's fine with me.

rusty shakelford said...

Mike them I'm sure your OTF taught you that the term Mutual Assured Destruction was coined by mad magazine and was a side effect of the nuclear build up between both countries. Since precision weapons did not exist in WWII i doubt it was law, I may have to check on that. Hiroshima & Nagasaki both had military value if you don't believe me go to :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_and_nagasaki#Nagasaki_during_World_War_II



Dan I thats great that opinions vary on nuking japan but I am glad they did it. There are some great counter-points offered on the above mentioned URL. I look back and see that superior military power brought peace and now japan is a strong ally

Marty I am in the military and I have shouldered the burdens you speak of.

Marty said...

Good Rusty. I'm glad to hear it. Have you been to Iraq yet? You're sure to quench your thirst for bombing people into oblivion over there.

Now.... continue to re-up until you're no longer needed.

Michael Westmoreland-White said...

Eleutheros, I agree that our consumerism is a large part of what fuels the war machine. I don't agree that it is all of it.

Shackleford, Wikipedia is notorious for its inaccuracy. MAD was not coined by MAD magazine, but by the Pentagon. MAD just lampooned it.

The fact that bombings could not be carried out with precision in WWII is WHY city bombings were criticized and why nukes qua nukes are illegal even under Just War standards. Its why influential groups like the Center for Defense Information, the foremost independent source of info. about the U.S. military and founded by ex-officers of general and admiral ranks, work to end nuclear weapons altogether.

And I'm sorry. You are simply wrong about Nagasaki. It was a civilian city and was not the original target that day but a BACKUP in case of cloud cover.

There were other choices. Several high ranking officers recommended detonating the Bomb on an uninhabited atoll near Japan as a warning. (Radiation affects were not yet known.) Others suggested detonating it 1 mile up over the ocean near Tokyo--so that it could be seen immediately by the emperor without taking civilian life. (Again, the civilian death toll through fallout would have been higher than realized at the time, but much lower than what was done to Hiroshim or, especially Nagasaki.)

Japan was already trying to surrender. Truman wrote in his diaries, declassified a few years back, that he knew that the Bomb wasn't needed to get a Japanese surrender without an invasion. He used it anyway to "keep the Russians in line" after WWII--not knowing that Soviet spies had already obtained those secrets.

It was mass murder on a monumental scale. It meant that the values of Hitler and Hirohito won even though their nations lost. The winning Allies were dragged down to their level of barbarity. That's what the so-called "war on terrorism" is doing now--except that it is also creating more terrorists than it is killing.

We are becoming that which we, as a society, profess to hate. Folks like Daddio are already there, IMO.

Eleutheros said...

Michael:"Eleutheros, I agree that our consumerism is a large part of what fuels the war machine. I don't agree that it is all of it."

Interesting. If we suddenly suspended all our consumerism and minimism and subsistence living suddenly captured everyone's imagination, why would we be exercising a vast war machine? No answer occurs to me so it's an honest question.

I will point to the period between the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Most of the standing army was disbanded and of six major warships commissioned during the war effort, three were never started and two were left to decay in the shipyard (until the next war started, that is).

As you have hinted in some of your posts, a defensive military doesn't cost so much and historically it has been more along the lines of militia. I would also point to David Hansen's The Other Greeks where he describes the long duration of Greek culture in terms of the economic system they employed which made military defense very worth while but made military offense unprofitable.

Unprofitable would be the operant word here. Our offensive military is very profitable, it has put us in a position of sitting on our fat arses and doing nothing while we can wrest or threaten to wrest what we want from the rest of the world.

Remember that in the stark terms I use, anyone in a society capable of producing real goods and services but declining to do so is a parasite and must be supported by taking the goods from someone else. My non-consumerist minimalist economy would mean that coordiators, counselors, activists, and all such people would do their work gratis and support themselves with honest work, a right livelihood.

If we did that, what would be our motivation for an offensive war machine?

If the answer is that we'd have no such motivation, then who is it who is the root cause of our miltarism?

Michael Westmoreland-White said...

Economic greed is a big part of the motivation for war machines. But another motivator is fear. We have to work on common security in order to get the U.S. to feel safe enough to start cutting the military budget and investing back in family farms.

I am not certain that your low-tech farm life for EVERYONE can support the current global population--unlike in Jeffersonian America. I want to work for shorter food distribution distances, more decentralized economies, and more sustainable development. And to lower population levels in non-draconian ways (before they get so high that only draconian measures like China's can work to lower them and prevent mass starvation).

But people aren't going to drop everything and massively run to start subsistance farms--and there wouldn't be enough land if they were.

So, I work on reducing my consumption rate, buying from farmers' markets, taking public transportation, etc. But I also work on other, more direct, peacemaking efforts. I can't just watch the body count rise and be content on a subsistence farm. Sorry.

Sustainable development around the world--which includes breaking the unsustainable patterns in North America and Europe and Japan--is one of the practices of just peacemaking. But only one. We have to work on all of them--all the time.

Eleutheros said...

Michael:"But people aren't going to drop everything and massively run to start subsistance farms--and there wouldn't be enough land if they were."

All parts of this statment are true, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think. No, there' wouldn't be enough land, nor enough biomass and fertility, not enough nitrogen (in useable form), ditto phosphorous and a number of other things. Not enough water either, not where it needs to be in the quantities there need be.

This fact should send a chill down you spine because the difference between what can be produced by substainable and subsistence farming and what the world needs to be fed ... is what is produced by oil. Modern farming is nothing more than a method of turning fossil oil into food.

And we are rapidly running out of oil. Does the slogan "Ghawar is dying" mean anything to you? It should, it is the world's largest oil field and it is in rather rapid decline as are ALL major oil fields in the world.

No, people aren't going to drop everything ....
People are just going to drop.

With a focus on what government is doing what and who is saying what from what pulpit, it might be that the great movements of our time have escaped the activist's view.

We are at, soon at, or just past Peak Oil where the cost of energy is going to become astronomically more expensive.

We have been eating down our reserves of stored food for six out of seven years and this year's harvests are badly plagued with droughts and heat.

The unbelieveably massive debt the US (and other parts of the world) are carrying as a result of the housing bubble (now bursting) bids fair to bring about the worst depression in history.

No, and more's the pity, you are right. People won't be dropping what they are doing and rushing to subsistence farms. Not even if they eventually come to want to.

Like the person who cut down the last tree on Easter Island, some activist will fill up their tank en route to the next protest or conference with the last gallon of fossil fuel.

Sustainable agriculture is only ONE aspect of promoting peace so long as we can continue to plunder the world for the rest. See how peaceful people are when they are hungry. Coming soon to a civilization near you.