Robert C. Koehler

The United States of America is a nation dying of self-inflicted wounds. Now is the time to step beyond the cruel stupidity of militarism.

Waging war, or not, is a choice. Mainstream geopolitical reporting pretty much ignores this miniscule reality and covers the ever-simmering possibility of war.

The myth of "the good war" persists and it's not going away any time soon.

Order seemingly is something hierarchical and imposed, rather than a collective agreement. The prevailing consciousness is dominance vs. submission.

When we wage war, we dehumanize—then kill—a specific segment of humanity. In the process, we "fray" our own humanity.

This latest massacre—this shattering of young lives, of collective trust and community—is one more revelation that something is profoundly wrong in the world's most powerful nation.

How do we embrace Planet Earth as a single, organic whole, of which we are just a part? How do we govern with a reverence for this whole?

What a broken window evoked in me was ultimately not loss — but a sense of connection that I had nearly forgotten.