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Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 31, 2014 The Courage To Disarm
Is anyone healthy enough, mentally, emotionally or spiritually, to be trusted with the use of lethal force?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 15, 2013 Reclaiming 'Chiraq'
Can Restorative Justice save Chicago? Violence is eating parts of this city alive. The civil rights movement needs to resummon its courage and demand a radically new social structure.
(16 comments) SHARE Friday, October 11, 2013 A Rationality Shutdown
The government's reptile brain remains in full operation. It hasn't shut down war, just compassion and common sense.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 5, 2013 Hope Flows from Hollow Water
Residents of Hollow Water tried to save their shattered community. Maybe they wound up saving the world.
SHARE Thursday, September 19, 2013 Building Real Peace
Building peace means more than protesting war. Nonviolent Peaceforce shows us how it's done in some of the world's most volatile trouble spots.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 13, 2010 First, Do No Harm
I know nowhere to start except here. And I know of nothing less to reach for than...salvation. I use this language not to promote existing religions, which far too often collude in the problem, but to reach deep into the human core, into the raw material of existence, to find new commonality with one another and to discover new -- or perhaps I mean to rediscover ancient, uncompromised and uncorrupted -- principles to live by.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 10, 2010 First, Do No Harm
The oil that continues to spill into the Gulf is a criis of civilization and implicates all of us. Can we rebuild our world on a foundation of core principles? First, do no harm!
SHARE Thursday, January 21, 2010 Supremes on Corporate Personhood
"The Constitution was written to protect real people,not to give corporations the power to challenge our fundamental rights and enacted laws,"said Price,Alliance for Democracy Co-Chair."With this decision, a business-friendly Supreme Court majority is further eroding the very basis of our democracy by allowing corporate money to dominate the political process.Corporate political speech is louder than that of ordinary persons.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, January 9, 2009 Be the Peace
Help us live without enemies, oh Lord!
SHARE Thursday, October 9, 2008 Brace Yourself
Power transfer is no different in a settled democracy than anywhere else.It's as messy,greed-driven & trouble-prone as an unregulated free market.Probably the biggest threat to fair and free elections is our faith-based belief that on this one occasion,when the stakes are highest,no one in America-no one who has power to lose-is going to cheat.This is a fool's mythology.Our future is up for grabs in less than a month.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 25, 2008 The Deep Cry for Integrity
$700 billion for the greedy few, a pittance at best for the common good? We won't solve our financial problems at the level of thinking that created them.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 18, 2008 Goo-Goo America
The problems & potential problems with hackable electronic voting machines, sloppy ballot chain-of-custody procedures & other matters related to the voting process itself are enormous & troubling,& I will address them as the election nears.For now,I focus on the basic fact of power.Its tendency to corrupt is known,documented & filed away under "history."Goo-Goo America has to rouse itself & rise to the challenges because
SHARE Friday, August 1, 2008 Citizens of the World
The surge of history Obama's run for the presidency summons contradicts the petty, short-sighted politics he occasionally plays.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 27, 2008 An Urgency of Joy
The culture of war gets what it wants. What it fears most is disarmament and the burgeoning forces of peace.
SHARE Thursday, September 6, 2007 The Prerequisite for Salvation
Over and over again, we mobilize ourselves around the illusion of consequence-free, violent eradication of threats and annoyances, and in the process run roughshod over a more complex view of human interaction and effective problem-solving. True self-defense begins with eye contact.
SHARE Thursday, August 30, 2007 Presence of Mind
Self-defense is more about eye contact than firepower. If you've ever defused a threat unarmed, let me know. It's time to disarm the myth of redemptive violence.
SHARE Thursday, August 23, 2007 The Nanny State
As we belittle government we also erode patriotism -- and that's probably a good thing. Humanity is entering its political adolescence.
SHARE Thursday, August 16, 2007 Creative Destruction
Our only hope is to remember not just the horrors of the neocons' war in Iraq but the ironies. Bush's "war on terror" is a terrorist's best friend.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 9, 2007 Disciples of Yossarian
Relax! Barack Obama would only target non-civilians with nuclear weapons. This is why we need a Democrat in office.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 2, 2007 Mission Gone Bad
The media are beginning their phased withdrawal from Iraq. They're hoping the lie of U.S. good intentions can be salvaged intact.