A Sacred Song; A Working Peace System

It's catch up time here in shackland. First up is Sacred Song - courtesy of my old HS friend Lin. Lin is the opposite of me when it comes to faith, God and religion. She is a very devout lady. I am  not. I am not a believer but I do not deny the existence of Jesus. He was simply  the most interesting person who has ever lived.  But the son of God? Virgin birth? Nope. But I am not an atheist that belittles those who believe in those things. This song most definitely describes my feelings on the matter -



I have found, however, certain songs do calm mne and make me more reflective.  Here's one of them -



On to this weeks topic - A Working Peace System. Since I submitted the topic I didn't have to Google it :-).

Peace is not merely the absence of war, as some would have us believe. There was a school of thought championed by a gentleman named David Mitrany called the functional theory of international development.  It was rather simple, straight forward and oh so logical sounding. Nations should focus on those things they shared in common. Develop small regional international agencies to work together to solve those issues.  A working example here in the USA was the Tennessee Valley Authority. The hope was there would be a web of agencies working for the common good.

Sounds great.

In practice we got the UN.   It's the greatest display pf chest thumping and sabre rattling we have.  The Security Council is virtually useless. But - there are arms of the UN that work.  WHO, UNICEF, FAO and others.  These agencies focus on the human condition .  So maybe there is hope that if we keep working we can develop a working peace system.  Clearly though, the functionalists did not contemplate a radical religios movement hell bent on turning the clock back to the dark ages.

The challenge is great but so are the stakes. 

Now it's time to see what the other LBC folk have to say.