I'm Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

On a recent return flight to Nashville, I secured a window seat.

I looked out as the jet sped up the runway, as the nose pointed skyward in the earth

receded.

That's when the fantasy began.

My whole life, I have imagined a world without war.

Pitched in the clouds which stretches of prairies, mountains, and cityscapes below, it is easy

to imagine peace.

Maybe it's the serenity of the cabin at takeoff.

Maybe an in-the-air perspective diminishes our disagreements.

Absent the visibility of people, I am thrust into the sublime understanding that our conflicts

are comparatively small.

From above, what I see is a planet in need of care.

Yet, earth's the right place for love wrote a famous poet.

Leaving it in flights of fancy avoids a very serious and fundamental duty.

A missed our ideological, religious, and political differences, we must work to engender kindness

and tenderness on our planet.

What obstructs this responsibility, it seems to me, is an unyielding quest for dominant

power, an unwillingness to carry forward the gains of what we once march for, and what

others imagined in their poems and works of art.

Generations of artists and activists have fought for mutual compassion and unity.

Instead of staring towards those principles, our global and national politics have embraced

...