Peace on Earth?

I just finished reading Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States", and that, along with Rob Bell's "Calling All Peacemakers" sermons have me thinking a lot about peace on earth. I don't know that it is possible for the world to be completely at peace, but I have no doubt that the world could be a much more peaceful place than it is now. It is going to take some drastic changes, but it is possible. I believe the United States plays a huge role in perpetuating a world that is constantly at war, and that as a nation, we have the power to change that. The United States exports massive amounts of arms (the government seems to make sure that large "defense" contractors in the US always have well paying contracts). Inevitably, some of these weapons are used against the US, which gives the Pentagon an excuse for spending billions of dollars to develop more sophisticated weapons. It's a pretty sick cycle really.
Not only are we equipping armies and terrorists all over the world, but we give them plenty of reasons to want to use them. As Robert Bowman, a former combat pilot in Vietnam, and now a Catholic bishop said,

We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these thins to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. That hared we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism....Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send tem to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children....
In short, we should do good instead of evil. Who would try to stop us? Who would hate us? Who would want to bomb us? That is the truth the American people need to hear.

Howard Zinn uses this quote at the end of "A People's History". I recently listed a few things the US could do with some of the trillions it spends on the military to begin trying to bring about peace on earth. Zinn mentions that the US could use a small portion of the military budget to treat tuberculosis and save millions of lives. Zinn puts a large part of his focus on what the US could do domestically with the military budget were we to shift our view from that of needing to have military control over the world to policy that is focused on meeting basic human needs. We could create jobs, give healthcare to everyone, provide housing subsidies to those who are unable to secure jobs that pay well enough, and give many more people access to higher education. Zinn dreams of the US as being a humanitarian superpower rather than a military superpower.
For any of this to happen, some major changes need to take place in our government. Neither the democrats nor republicans have done much of anything to reduce the military budget or increase humanitarian spending. Despite Clinton's promises to bring in a new era and to change the government, he increased military spending and cut programs for the poor. His balanced budget involved cutting funding for many programs that helped people have a decent life.
I could go on and on about this, and I would like to quote all of "A People's History" here, but hopefully you will take the initiative and read it yourself. I know that I recommend a lot of books, and this one is not exactly light reading, but I would strongly encourage you to find a copy of it and move it to the top of your reading list. No books really matter if we don't understand what is going on in the world and do what we can to change it and to fight for the rights of everyone, and this book will open your eyes to the way that the country is run and encourage you to do something to recognize the rights of all humans.
I've been reading the Bible quite a bit lately, and the things that stand out most clearly to me in the New Testament are Jesus' coming to change the world. At the end of one of his sermons, Rob Bell quotes Mark Krylanski's (not sure on the spelling) "Nonviolence: 25 Lessons in the History of a Dangerous Idea" saying, "If someone were to come along who would not compromise, a rebel who insisted on taking the only moral path, rejecting violence in all its forms, such a person would seem so meaning that he would be killed, and after his death he would be canonized or deified, because a saint is less dangerous than a rebel." Rob Bell goes on to say: "If you hyper spiritualize [that person]... people would lose the fact that his message is about this world, here, today." I don't know if Rob Bell took much flak for this, but I can't imagine he didn't. He's preaching to a church full of people who have grown up thinking that Jesus' message is primarily spiritual, and some in his congregation (though they might not say it) probably think that Jesus' message is only spiritual, other than the fact that we're supposed to live better lives because out of gratitude to the one who got us into heaven. Rob Bell is making a pretty bold statement here. The way I understand it, he's saying that Jesus' mission was to come change this world, that the spiritual component of his message was very minimal, with most of the spiritual focus added after Christ's death. Maybe this isn't what Rob Bell was trying to say, but I feel pretty comfortable saying that. Before Christ, being a Jew, and part of God's chosen people meant that God was going to take care of them in this life. The Jews couldn't even agree on whether there was an afterlife. Jesus made it pretty clear that there is (using the Jewish scripture of the Torah) by pointing out that God told Moses "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Jesus said that God is the God of the living, not the dead, therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must be alive somewhere.
I got a little sidetracked by that resurrection business, but what I wanted to say was that the Jews believed in a God who took care of them in the present, and were looking for a Messiah who would save them from the Romans and from the systems that oppressed them. They were a little off, because Jesus didn't set them free from the Romans, but he did bring a message of hope and justice for this world. His message wasn't "Just hang in there for a while, and then you'll get to go to heaven where everything is all right." His message was "I'm bringing a revolution that can change the world, it can flip the power system on its head through non-violent resistance, and set the oppressed free. It can restore this world to something much closer to what it was created to be. My revolution means that all people are equal and should be treated equally, no one should ever be oppressed, but all should have the right to live a beautiful peaceful life." In those days, that meant the Jews shouldn't be subject to the Romans, that everyone should have land to grow food and a place to live, that people should be free to worship as they please. Jesus wasn't telling his followers to go fight the Romans, because he understood that violence always leads to more violence, but he was telling them to be subversive and to rebel against the unjust systems of the world. To rebel non-violently, we have to be creative. I would love to hear your ideas on how we can non-violently rebel against the unjust systems of this world. How awesome would it be to have a weekend conference on "Peacemaking" with open forums and then to go put those ideas into practice? (For more on this, go listen to Rob Bell's "Calling All Peacemakers" sermons on the Mars Hill website. I promise you they are worth the time.)
Peace.