[*BCM*] Be the change you want to see in the world.

[turtle]

Boston Critical Mass <list at bostoncriticalmass.org> wrote:

> 
> Is there a bike forum somewhere around here....?
>    
>   - Jon

Well, while the social atmosphere in Iraq may not seem to have much to
do with bicycling in Boston, it does.  We don't bike in a vacuum.  We
bike in the world.  And what's going on in the world, especially
relating to people's hopes and fears, effects absolutely everything. 
When people are afraid, they act defensively and selfishly.  On the
roads, in their homes, and in the voting booth.  

Remember the Butterfly Effect?  The idea of chaos theory is that a
butterfly could flap it's wings in China and cause a hurricane in
Kansas.  Everything relates to everything else.  

So if you really want a better place to bike, you need to look at what
is making that place, and the people who inhabit it, so antisocial.

Certainly, as I mentioned before, there are some people who, for one
reason or another, honestly want to fight as it gives them a sense of
purpose and power.  But the vast majority of people, as Anarchist
Judaism also noticed, really don't want war, and just want to live a
decent, peaceful life.  Those normal folks are the ones who get sucked
into war through fear.  And those are the people we can work with and
help - to be more conscientious roadusers, as well as more pro-social
people in general.

-Turtle

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"One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we
seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.  We must
pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means." - Martin Luther King Jr.