Let’s be thankful.

let’s take a moment..
At least some break from your daily lives, and spend time with family and friends. How graceful our lives are in the United States! Reading Thoreau always reminds me of the inherent good in life– let’s not watch messages that tell us we need more, we’re not good enough, we’re overweight or uncompetitive. In debt or unemployed, we have everything we need. Cherish our health! Relish the community! Our politicians are doing well! Sometimes being happy is the best privilege we have.

From Thoreau, a business mentality

Walden, page 20: “I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You will export such articles as the country affords, purely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite, always in native bottoms. These will be good ventures.”

“To keep up the steady despatch of commodities, for the supply of such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state of markets, prospects of war and peace every where, and anticipate the tendencies of trade and civiliization– charts to be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertaind, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected. Universal science.. account of stock.. profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 20

The Crisis in Darfur

What is happening, and what can we do about it?

Just went to an incredible talk from a Darfur refugee- that means he was a Muslim in Western Sudan when government backed militias destroyed 50 villages in his valley and killed 21 members of his family. That was in 1983. From there, what do you do?

1. He fled to Egypt and organized. Wrote for 6 years to Arab and Muslim leaders, press, all to condone the killing. Nothing.
2. Contacted embassies in Egypt: large-scale internet distribution to amazing world response. Awareness hit international community.
3. Mentioned in US and UN circles, but no International backed action.
4. Now travelling around speaking, crying out for peacekeepers who would be welcomed by the darfuri people. But still no action has been taken.

The story ends on a sombering note: 15 years of genocide and murder and rape, until his people can no longer leave their villages for firewood. International complacency (follow the money…). African Union inefficiency and corruption.

But WHAT to do?

People have been trying to get our government to act. Maybe Obama will. The letters are all in…

International action would be best. UN declares genocide= moral obligation to act. Target=Ban Ki Moon secretary general.

International causes have to be stopped. Clog the vein that feeds government war. Locate and destry multinational streams of revenue. Lawsuit or…

Direct action from the people.
Set fire to the oil reserves they want. Shut down the gold mines and release international press. You clearly aren’t benefitting from the revenue, better without. If the trade becomes too dangerous, people will divest and the money will leave. The crisis burns itself out.

My thoughts on how to solve crisis: Any resistance effort has to be led by the affected, charged by a will to survive. Donations could flow much more efficiently through the internet into organizer’s hands than through government or international aid channels.

Any largescale peace effort would instantly give itself away: white people, white vans, white weapons drive the war underground. Instead it needs to be escalated vs. Silent millions.

*SO…*
This is where I must leave you, dear reader. I am not going to be the one to organize for the solution to Darfur. I do know that more visibility is a waste of effort, and untargeted begging is unclassy. What can one person who really cares DO?

Organize! The internet gives us unlimited power of knowledge. Find out what’s going on, look at solutions and then make a better one. People are dying, but every crisis has a best plan of attack. Go, click, thrive.

Amnesty International
BU coalition to save darfur

A New Hope for Darfur (in Water) speaker tomorrow:
Thursday, November 20th
7:00 PM
COM 101 (640 Commonwealth Avenue)

Hope and change must dominate our thoughts, or else we will be lost.
https://eddiemill.wordpress.com

-Eddie Miller
BU ’10
eddiemill@gmail.com