It seems we are riding on a wave of indignation over children killing children. How often do we see such indignation expressed over children being killed by adults!

Our children? Naturally we have a very special feeling for our very own little boys and girls. Most of us even feel a tug at our hearts at the sight of a toddler from Africa, Asia and other continents. Yet we can blot their existence out of our consciousness when the order goes out to kill.

Of course, the order doesn't come right out and say "Kill!" Too many voters might object. Instead we hear, "Punish the dictators, Teach them a lesson, Make the world safe for democracy, Retaliation, Liberation, Freedom!"

"The bombs bursting in air" (which we glorify when we stand for the music of our national anthem) can be counted on to kill some of these little ones, leave others maimed, orphaned, homeless. "Too bad, but we had to show we meant what we warned."

Throughout the world today there are thousands of people in every country who have organized to put an end to this killing (at least two thousand peace organizations are listed in Housman's Peace Directory). These people care for human life.

Also, in most countries many people have organized in small groups to save our planet from profit-seeking plundering and polluting of our environment. These people care.

There are people the world over that would halt the on-going extinction of species. They care.

Everywhere in the world are those working to bring food to the starving, homes to the homeless, freedom to sweatshop slaves, and for punishment to be replaced by treatment. All of these people care.

Unfortunately, they concentrate their caring efforts almost exclusively on their own immediate objectives. They act separately, focusing on symptoms rather than basic causes, and beat their heads against the walls of political power.

Now what if all these people were suddenly to realize that all their separate causes are interrelated, that they have one common cause-caring for human well-being and our life-sustaining environment? What if they realized that their common antagonist is the dominant attitude of acquiring-profiteering quest for wealth, luxuries, privilege, and power, and narrow loyalties to nations, religions, races and traditions?

Is not the promotion of this common cause "the Great Movement" imagined and proposed by great thinkers of the 20th century?

If a global action network of anti-militarists, environmentalists, conservationists, non-profit food and housing providers, healers, and educators-all Carers-were to see themselves, and take actions, as One Great Movement, they would exert enormous moral power-enough to boost universal caring as the dominant spirit of human society.

The Movement might first throw its full weight into a global condemnation and rejection of militarism. Simultaneously, its participants would act to design and build a life-nurturing world community, thus ending excuses for killing preparations, weaponry, and national segregation.

At some point the Movement would be involved in designing and constructing a world economy that no longer spawns dire poverty, on the one hand, along with concentrations of wealth and power, plundering and polluting, crime, and human exploitation.

The whole Movement would act to see that every human being, every child, lived as healthful and meaningful a life as possible, and that our global environment was conducive to conserving a wide diversity of species and a long-term survival outlook.

This world revolution-for it is a revolution of values, downgrading the quest for personal and national advantage, while raising the value of serving human well-being-will be unlike most previous revolutions.

It will be non-violent-at least on the part of the revolutionaries. They will not retaliate with violence to any attacks by defenders of the current grasping, violence-glorifying world order.

Nor will the Movement be a political issue-a power struggle, as usually understood. Political lobbying will play little or no part. However, power will no doubt shift as a result of Movement advances, value changes. The prophets of the new way will have no concern for power. Their aim is rather to inspire a change from popular respect for, and reliance on, self-serving, possessiveness, nationalism, and violence to active concern for all children-all humans-and our environment.

The spirit of the Movement (while inevitably evoking some resentment at social change itself) will be overwhelmingly uplifting, hope-inspiring, celebrative. It will be the mood expressed by "We Shall Overcome."

Hard questions need to be confronted.

1. Since no such global grassroots movement now exists, how will people recognize is emergence?

2. How can a movement change the way people think?

3. Mere mention of the term "global movement" has been called "pie-in-the-sky." What factors make it an impossibility?

Or is this the "pie-in-the-sky" of a human being walking on the moon, of mere human animals controlling their devices millions of miles away from earth?

More specifics are forthcoming.