Father John Dear interviewed on The Nonviolent Life

Fr. John Dear has been travelling around the U.S. engaging people with Campaign Nonviolence, a project of Pace e Bene. In this video, John is interviewed by Mike McCormick on KEXP Radio's Saturday morning show, Mind Over Matters.

Ring the Bells (for PEACE) on Armistice Day!!!

(Editor's Question to consider as you read the following message from Veterans for Peace - Why did Congress (in 1954) change Armistice Day to Veterans Day??? Note: Portions in bold typeface are my emphasis.)

**********************

Veterans For Peace calls for the observance of Veterans Day to be in keeping with the holiday’s original intent. Congressional Act (52 Stat.351: 5 U.S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made November 11th of each year a legal Federal Holiday,“A day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day’.”

The ceasefire on the, “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918 along the European Western Front was such a relief to all those involved as the world had never seen such horror and carnage as World War I. The horrible conflict that had come to be known as the “War to End War” brought the bulk of humanity to contemplate abolishing war.

Veterans For Peace calls on its members and allies to observe Veterans Day by rejecting militarism and the glorification of war. We call on the nation to honor veterans and all those who have died in war by working for peace and the prevention of war. There is no better way to honor the dead than to protect the living from the fear, terror and morale deprivation of war.

VFP Resolution Submitted by Bob Heberle, VFP Chapter 27, (Endorsed by VFP Chapter 27)

Whereas bells worldwide were rung on November 11, 1918 to celebrate and recognize the ending of WWI, "The war to end all wars", and

Whereas to commemorate that peaceful pledge, bells were rung November 11 for over 35 years, and

Whereas, legislation making November 11 a holiday passed in 1938, " Shall be a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day." and

Whereas the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting in its place the word "Veterans." With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars, and

Whereas the substitution of the word "Armistice" to "Veterans" changes the focus from peace to war by celebrating and honoring warriors and war, and

Whereas that November date symbolized the nation's desire to hold to a peaceful future and away from war, and

Whereas, too often rhetoric and patriotic symbols are used instead of genuine compensation for the extraordinary sacrifices and services of military personnel, and

Whereas 90% of victims of wars are now civilians and by honoring only veterans, the public is distracted from the awful price paid by those other than military members, and

Whereas Chapter #27 has for over 17 years promoted the ringing of a bell eleven times at its ceremonies on November 11 and at other solemn occasions such as funerals to remind the public of that Armistice Day peace pledge, and

Whereas the ringing of bells is so much more fitting and peaceful than the often practiced gun salutes and fighter plane flyovers.

Therefore Be It Resolved that Veterans For Peace, Inc. urges its membership to adopt the procedure of honoring peace by focusing on bell ringing on Armistice Day, November 11 and other solemn occasions.

Approved at the 2008 VFP national convention

The Nonviolent Life - a new book on peacemaking

An announcement from Pace e Bene

The Nonviolent Life 
A new book on peacemaking
By John Dear

"In The Nonviolent Life, John Dear articulates a vision of the power, meaning and impact of the spiritually grounded nonviolent life—and invites us to put this into practice in both immediate and long-term ways." -Ken Butigan, author and activist

"How can we become people of nonviolence and help the world become more nonviolent? What does it mean to be a person of active nonviolence? How can we help build a global grassroots movement of nonviolence to disarm the world, relieve unjust human suffering, make a more just society and protect creation and all creatures? What is a nonviolent life?"

These are the questions John Dear—Nobel Peace Prize nominee, long time peace activist and Pace e Bene staff member—poses in this ground-breaking book. John Dear suggests that the life of nonviolence requires three simultaneous attributes: being nonviolent toward ourselves; being nonviolent to all people, all creatures, and all creation; and joining the global grassroots movement of nonviolence.

After thirty years of preaching the Gospel of nonviolence, John Dear offers a simple, original yet profound way to capture the crucial elements of nonviolent living, and the possibility of creating a new nonviolent world. According to John, “Most people pick one or two of these dimensions, but few do all three. To become a fully rounded, three dimensional person of nonviolence, we need to do all three simultaneously.” Perhaps then he suggests, we can join the pantheon of peacemakers from Jesus and Francis to Dorothy Day and Mahatma Gandhi.

In his new book, John Dear proposes a simple vision of nonviolence that everyone can aspire to. It will help everyone be healed of violence, and inspire us to transform our culture of violence into a new world of nonviolence!

John Dear is an internationally known voice for peace and nonviolence. He is a popular speaker, peacemaker, organizer, lecturer, retreat leader, and the author/editor of 30 books. He has organized and participated in nonviolent campaigns for over three decades; been arrested some 75 times in acts of civil disobedience against war and injustice; and spent nearly a year of his life in jail for peace. Recently, John was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. For further information, see www.johndear.org

To order The Nonviolent Life: Visit - www.paceebene.org P.O. Box 1891 Long Beach, CA 90801 510-268-8765 info@paceebene.org

War is Hell

Today's A picture is worth a thousand words offering...

LINKS:

Veterans for Peace: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth: http://www.nnomy.org/

Boston Marathon Bombing: Statement by Massachusetts Peace Action

Dear Friends,

The recent bombing in Boston has elicited a huge response from every corner of government, media and the society as a whole.  This is a critical time, even as events continue to unfold, that we all take a step back to take a breath and reflect before speaking or acting.  Massachusetts Peace Action has issued a statement in response to the Boston Marathon bombing and aftermath that is worthy of our attention.

In Peace,

Leonard

###

Massachusetts Peace Action shares in the sadness, appreciation, restraint and solidarity shown by President Obama, Governor Patrick, faith and civic leaders, and neighbors in the face of the violence at Monday’s Boston Marathon and during the days following.

There is sadness for those killed and injured, for the families whose lives have been scarred, and for the culture of violence, here and abroad, that leads to such senseless acts.

There is appreciation for first responders, including Boston peace activist Carlos Arredondo, whose courageous actions saved lives and modeled how all of us should respond in times of crisis.

There must be restraint, as the facts of the violence emerge -- especially toward individuals and communities who are too often blamed or implicated in acts of political violence. We call on our leaders and the media to be especially careful in the days to come.

Finally, there is solidarity; Boston has seen the face of the violence that is a daily reality for civilians in Baghdad, Afghanistan, Somalia and other places wracked by the impact of militarism.

In the days and months ahead, we commit to helping our community heal, connect and create a culture of peace.

Posted at http://masspeaceaction.org/2640

War without End (By Kathy Kelly)

Editor's Note:  Today is a solemn anniversary - of the day on which the United States invaded the sovereign state of Iraq.  May we honor all who have suffered and died with a moment of silence, and then may we speak and act out in concert calling for an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. military forces and private contractors from Iraq, and for an end to U.S. war-making and military  intervention everywhere.
Published on Tuesday, March 19, 2013 by Waging Nonviolence (With THANKS to Kathy Kelly and Voices for Creative Nonviolence!). 

War without End

by Kathy Kelly

 

Ten years ago today, Iraqis braced themselves for the anticipated “Shock and Awe” attacks that the United States was planning to launch against them. The media buildup for the attack assured Iraqis that barbarous assaults were looming. I was living in Baghdad at the time, along with other Voices in the Wilderness activists determined to remain in Iraq, come what may. We didn’t want U.S.-led military and economic war to sever bonds that had grown between ourselves and Iraqis who had befriended us over the past seven years. Since 1996, we had traveled to Iraq numerous times, carrying medicines for children and families there, in open violation of the economic sanctions which directly targeted the most vulnerable people in Iraqi society — the poor, the elderly and the children.

U.S. Marines occupy Baghdad, in March 2003, in front
of the Al Fanar hotel that housed Voices activists
throughout the Shock and Awe bombing.

I still feel haunted by children and their heartbroken mothers and fathers whom we met in Iraqi hospitals.

 

“I think I understand,” murmured my friend Martin Thomas, a nurse from the U.K., as he sat in a pediatric ward in a Baghdad hospital in 1997, trying to comprehend the horrifying reality. “It’s a death row for infants.” Nearly all of the children were condemned to death, some after many days of writhing in pain on bloodstained mats, without pain relievers. Some died quickly, wasted by water-borne diseases. As the fluids ran out of their bodies, they appeared like withered, spoiled fruits. They could have lived, certainly should have lived — and laughed and danced, and run and played — but instead they were brutally and lethally punished by economic sanctions supposedly intended to punish a dictatorship over which civilians had no control.
 

The war ended for those children, but it has never ended for survivors who carry memories of them.
 

Likewise, the effects of the U.S. bombings continue, immeasurably and indefensibly.

 

Upon arrival in Baghdad, we would always head to the Al Fanar Hotel which had housed scores of previous delegations.

 

Often, internationals like us were the hotel’s only clients during the long years when economic sanctions choked Iraq’s economy and erased its infrastructure. But in early March of 2003, rooms were quickly filling at the Al Fanar. The owner invited his family members and some of his neighbors and their children to move in, perhaps hoping that the United States wouldn’t attack a residence known to house internationals.

 

Parents in Iraq name themselves after their oldest child. Abu Miladah, the father of two small girls, Miladah and Zainab, was the hotel’s night desk clerk. He arranged for his wife, Umm Miladah, to move with their two small daughters into the hotel. Umm Miladah warmly welcomed us to befriend her children. It was a blessed release to laugh and play with the children, and somehow our antics and games seemed at least to distract Umm Miladah from her rising anxiety as we waited for the United States to rain bombs and missiles down on us.

 

When the attacks began, Umm Miladah could often be seen uncontrollably shuddering from fear. Day and night, explosions would rattle the windows and cause the Al Fanar’s walls to shake. Ear-splitting blasts and sickening thuds would come from all directions, near and far, over the next two weeks. I would often hold Miladah, who was three years old, and Zainab, her 18-month-old baby sister, in my arms. That’s how I realized that they both had begun to grind their teeth, morning, noon and night. Several times, we witnessed eight-year-old Dima, the daughter of another hotel worker, gazing up in forlorn shame at her father from a pool of her own urine, having lost control of her bladder in the first days of “Shock and Awe.”

 

And after weeks, when the bombing finally ended, when we could exhale a bit, realizing we had all survived, I was eager to take Miladah and Zainab outside. I wanted them to feel the sun’s warmth, but first I headed over to their mother, wanting to know if she felt it was all right for me to step out with her children.

 

She was seated in the hotel lobby, watching the scene outside. U.S. Marines were uncurling large bales of barbed wire to set up a check point immediately outside our hotel. Beige military jeeps, armored personnel carriers, tanks and Humvees lined the streets in every direction. Tears were streaming down Umm Miladah’s face. “Never before did I think that this would happen to my country,” she said. “And I feel very sad. And this sadness, I think it will never go away.”

She was a tragic prophet.

 

The war had just ended for those killed during the “Shock and Awe” bombing and invasion, and it was to abruptly end for many thousands killed in the ensuing years of military occupation and civil war. But it won’t end for the survivors.

 

Effects go on immeasurably and indefensibly.

 

Effects of war continue for the 2.2 million people who’ve been displaced by bombing and chaos, whose livelihoods are irreparably destroyed, and who’ve become refugees in other countries, separated from loved ones and unlikely to ever reclaim the homes and communities from which they had to flee hastily. Within Iraq, an estimated 2.8 million internally displaced people live, according to Refugees International, “in constant fear, with limited access to shelter, food, and basic services.”

 

The war hasn’t ended for people who are survivors of torture or for those who were following orders by becoming torturers.

 

Nor has it ended for the multiple generations of U.S. taxpayers who will continue paying for a war which economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz have so far priced at $4 trillion.

 

For Bradley Manning, whose brave empathy exposed criminal actions on the part of U.S. warlords complicit in torture, death squads and executions, the war most certainly isn’t over. He lives as an isolated war hero and whistleblower, facing decades or perhaps life in prison.

 

The war may never end for veterans who harbor physical and emotional wounds that will last until they die. On March 19, on the 10th anniversary of the Shock and Awe invasion, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, joined by the Center for Constitutional Rights and other activist groups, will gather in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., to launch an initiative claiming their right to heal. Rightfully, they’re calling for health care, accountability and reparations, and just as rightfully, they’re calling for our support.

 

A civilized country would heed their call. A civilized country would demand heartfelt reparations to the people of Iraq and cease to interfere in their internal affairs, would secure freedom and official praise for whistleblowers like Bradley Manning, and would rapidly begin to liberate itself from subservience to warlords and war profiteers. Gandhi was once asked, “What do you think of western civilization?” And famously, he answered, “I think it would be a good idea.”

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

The Race to End Violence Before We End Life

By Robert J. Burrowes

Can we take meaningful action to prevent our own extinction without ending human violence first?

The scientific evidence that human extinction will now occur before 2050 continues to rapidly accumulate. (See, for example, 'Global Extinction within one Human Lifetime as a Result of a Spreading Atmospheric Arctic Methane Heat Wave and Surface Firestorm':
http://climatesoscanada.org/blog/2012/04/30/global-extinction-within-one-human-lifetime-as-a-result-of-a-spreading-atmospheric-arctic-methane-heat-wave-and-surface-firestorm/) Of course, we can deny this scientific evidence because it frightens us, we can delude ourselves that someone or something else (perhaps governments) will fix it, or we can delude ourselves that a few painless
measures, primarily taken by others, will sort it all out. Another option is to powerfully take responsibility for the problem and play a vital role in addressing it ourselves. This is the choice for each of us.

On 11 November 2011 a movement to end violence in all of its forms was launched around the world: 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World'. So far this movement has gained individual and organizational participants in 47 countries and the movement expands every day. But this is not a movement for the faint-hearted. This movement requires individuals and organisations that are willing to contemplate and take action on a range of deep and unpleasant truths about the state of our world because the time for pretence and prevarication is over.

So what is unique about 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World'? The Nonviolence Charter is an attempt to put the focus on human violence as the pre-eminent problem faced by our species, to truthfully identify all of the major manifestations of this violence, and to identify
ways to tackle all of these manifestations of violence in a systematic and strategic manner. It is an attempt to put the focus on the fundamental cause – the violence we adults inflict on children – and to stress the importance of dealing with that cause. (See 'Why Violence?' http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence) It is an attempt to focus on what you and I – that is, ordinary people – can do to end human violence and the Nonviolence Charter invites us to pledge to make that effort. And it is an attempt to provide a focal point around which we can mobilise with a sense of shared commitment with people from all over the world.



Robert Burrowes speaking about the People's Charter

In essence then, one aim of the Nonviolence Charter is to give every individual and organisation on planet Earth the chance to deeply consider where they stand on the fundamental issue of human violence. Will you publicly declare your commitment to work to end human violence? Or are you going to leave it to others?

And what, precisely, do you want to do? And with whom? The Charter includes suggestions for action in a wide variety of areas; for example, by inviting people to participate in 'The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth' - http://tinyurl.com/flametree - which is a simple yet comprehensive strategy for individuals and organisations to deal with the full range of environmental problems. The Charter also provides an opportunity to identify and contact others, both locally and internationally, with whom we can work in locally relevant ways, whatever our preferred focus for action. In that sense, each participating individual and organisation becomes part of a worldwide community working to end human violence for all time.

So far, the movement has attracted some exceptional people long known for their work to create a world without violence. These people include renowned international peace activist and 'living legend' Ela Gandhi (granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi), Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire, pre-eminent public intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky, president of the Malaysian-based International Movement for a Just World Professor Chandra Muzaffar, Director of Aksyon para sa Kapayapaan at Katarungan at the Pius XII Catholic Center in the Philippines Dr Tess Ramiro, the Deputy Moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa Dr Braam Hanekom, prominent nonviolent activists (including Anita McKone, Anahata Giri, Tom Shea, Leonard Eiger, Tarak Kauff, Jill Gough, Jim Albertini, Lesley Docksey and Bruce Gagnon), the jurist Judge Mukete Tahle Itoe of Cameroon, author Anna Perera of the UK and the eminent human rights and communal harmony activist Professor Ram Puniyani in India. Apart from these and other prominent signatories, however, it is mostly 'ordinary people' who are making the pledge to work for a world without violence.

Many organisations are making the pledge too. These include Pax Christi Australia, Nonviolence International in Canada, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Cymru (Wales), the Human Rights Center in Georgia, the GandhiServe Foundation in Germany, Muslim Peacemaker Teams in Iraq, Women for Human Rights in Nepal, the Pan-African Reconciliation Centre in Nigeria, the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand, the Holy Land Trust in Palestine, Buddha Dharma in Slovenia, the Forum for Community Change and Development in South Sudan, Facilitate Global and Share the World’s Resources in the
UK as well as Bay Area Women in Black, the Blauvelt Dominican Sisters Social Justice Committee, It's Our Economy and Veterans for Peace in the USA. There are many others.

The Nonviolence Charter acknowledges our many differences, including the different issues on which we choose to work. But it also offers us a chance to see the unity of our overarching aim within this diversity. Hence, whatever our differences, we are given the chance to see that ending human violence is our compelling and unifying dream.

If you think it is time to end violence before we end life, you can join this movement. You can read and, if you wish, sign the pledge of 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' online at http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com/

2/2013

###

Biodata: Robert has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of 'The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A
Gandhian Approach', State University of New York Press, 1996. His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his personal website is a http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com


Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 325
Blackburn
Victoria 3130
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net
Websites: http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com (Charter)
          http://tinyurl.com/flametree (Flame Tree Project)
          http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence ('Why Violence?')
          http://anitamckone.wordpress.com (Songs of Nonviolence)
          http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

MLK: Beyond Vietnam

Friends,

Last Saturday at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action we honored Martin Luther King Jr's legacy of nonviolence and his opposition to war and nuclear weapons. We shared this video of his sermon titled Why I am against the war in Vietnam with the attendees. There was absolute silence in the room throughout the 23 minutes of this remarkable video in which the people at The Real News Network put together powerful images to accompany one of the great sermons of our (or any) time.

This sermon resonates for me (as it did for everyone in that room on Saturday) as much today as it did nearly 46 years ago.  One could switch a country's name or two and it would seem as if this sermon was written in 2013.  A slight variation on this sermon was given by Dr. King nearly a month before (at the Riverside Church), and has come to be known as Beyond Vietnam.

It is a fitting meditation in this time in which we celebrate the birth of one the greatest peacemakers of all time. May we resolve to continue the struggle that Dr. King waged until his untimely death nearly 45 years ago.  Together may we move beyond Vietnam, beyond Iraq, beyond Afghanistan.  May we move beyond war altogether.

In the spirit of Dr. King and Nonviolence,

Leonard

P.S. - The video contains an abridged (abeit well edited) version of this sermon.  You can (and should) read the full sermon (showing the parts left out of the video) at The Real News Network.

 

Martin Luther King Jr: Digging Deeper

MLK, GZ and the Heart of Nonviolence

(Originally published in the January 2013 edition of the Ground Zero Newsletter, http://www.gzcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/January-2013.pdf  by Leonard Eiger; This essay may be copied and distributed freely.)

"When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men” (Martin Luther King Jr.).

This month Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action honors the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19^th at The Center and on January 21^st in the MLK Seattle March.
Just what does an organization working to abolish nuclear weapons have in common with Dr. King?  The quote above by Dr. King sums it up, speaking to the root – or what should be called the taproot – of violence in the hearts of human beings that spurs “scientific power” to “outrun moral power,” thereby threatening all humanity with nuclear weapons.  

When we hear about Dr. King – generally once a year around the time of his birthday, January 15th – the corporate news media refers to him as “the slain civil rights leader.” But Dr. King was so much more than that.  The TV images the media convey are always the same ones – battling segregation in Birmingham in 1963; reciting his dream of racial harmony in Washington in 1963; marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama in 1965; and lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis in 1968.

In the early 1960s when Dr. King was challenging rampant, legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media were his allies, showing graphic footage of police dogs, bullwhips and cattle prods used against southern African Americans who sought the right to vote or eat at a public lunch counter.

After the passage of the Civil Rights Acts in 1964 and 1965 Dr. King began challenging our nation’s fundamental priorities. He maintained that the civil rights laws meant nothing without human rights, including economic rights. He spoke out against the huge gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.

Dr. King did not suddenly become an opponent of war (and nuclear weapons) once the major civil rights struggle was over.  As early as 1954 he said in one of his sermons that “the great danger facing us today is not so much the atomic bomb that was created by physical science.  Not so much the atomic bomb that you can put in an airplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and thousands of people – as dangerous as that is.  But the real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness – that’s the atomic bomb we’ve got to fear today.”

Dr. King understood that the overt manifestations of violence – war and nuclear weapons – were deadly symptoms of a much deeper malady of the human heart.  He understood violence all too well, both through experiencing it firsthand and through a deep study of Christian and Gandhian nonviolence.

By 1967 Dr. King had become one of the country’s most prominent opponents of the Vietnam War as well as a staunch critic of overall United States foreign policy. He spoke of the difficulty of working for peace in an atmosphere of mass conformity. “Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.”

He went on to say that, “the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.  We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.” There is no other choice for us, because, “silence is betrayal.”

 Dr. King saw the connection between war and the evisceration of social programs in this country. He “knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam [or Iraq and Afghanistan today] continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube.” Dr. King saw “war as an enemy of the poor”.

Dr. King spoke of “a far deeper malady within the American spirit” that, of course, is greed. He said that it is our "refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments" that governs our foreign policy, and makes the United States the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” He called for a “radical revolution of values” wherein we “shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.” He said that playing “the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside…will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

As a true modern-day prophet Dr. King was not afraid to warn people in the U.S. that, “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” He hammered away at the need for everyone to speak out and use the most creative methods of protest possible, not just against the war, but also for “significant and profound change in American life and policy.” He believed that, “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.”

Ground Zero has, for over 35 years, carried on in the spirit of nonviolent direct action as we, too, seek “to keep the world from committing the suicide of nuclear war.”  In a grand experiment in truth we “explore the meaning and practice of nonviolence from a perspective of deep spiritual reflection, providing a means for witnessing to and resisting all nuclear weapons” (from Ground Zero’s mission statement). 

Michael Honey, in his book “Going Down the Jericho Road”, spoke clearly to King’s commitment to nonviolent direct action in a passage about James Lawson, who worked closely with King.  “Like King, he [Lawson] spoke of ‘soul force’ or satyagraha, as the crucial ingredient needed to keep the world from committing the suicide of nuclear war and to defeat racism.  For him, pacifism meant: ‘We will make the choice according to the methods that we use, not according to the ends that we seek.’”

For me that statement goes to the heart of Ground Zero.  Although we seek an end to nuclear weapons, the end(s) do not justify just any means.  We understand the dangers of compromising the spirit of nonviolence in order to hasten the process.  We understand that we may not see the fruits of our labors in our lifetime(s), yet we continue speaking out and resisting nonviolently, unabated in the struggle, knowing that the alternative is unspeakable.  There is no other choice for us because “silence is betrayal” [to future generations].



A very public display of Dr. King's prophetic message -
at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action's MLK Nonviolent Direct Action
at the Bangor Trident ballistic missile submarine base in 2012

As we prepare to celebrate Dr. King this month and rededicate ourselves to the long struggle to abolish nuclear weapons I think it appropriate to let him have the last word, something to create a broad perspective for us to live into:

“It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine.”  --Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution

What shall we do in the New Year???

Walt Whitman published his collection of poems titled Leaves of Grass in 1855.  The first edition contained a preface, which was left out of the subsequent editions.

My friend and fellow peace activist, Dorli Rainey, sent the abridged preface out as her "New Year's wishes for the world written almost 150 year ago and still valid."

It is, indeed, a worthy wish for the world.  It is my New Year's wish that we all take Whitman's advice to heart (and action) as we move forward this year.

Here is the unabridged version of the preface to Leaves of Grass. 

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT TO END VIOLENCE GATHERS MOMENTUM

Editor's Note:  Since Robert Burrowes wrote the following update about the People's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire signed the Charter and the Charter received its first signatories in New Zealand, Romania and Thailand as well.  The Charter now has signatories in 39 countries (and organisationalendorsements).

*****************

Many people are concerned about wars being fought in various parts of the world. Others are motivated by images of poverty and starvation locally or in distant parts of the world. Increasing numbers of people are inclined to take action in response to the ongoing climate catastrophe. And for some people, the issue that concerns them is violence against women, or refugees, or nuclear power, or species extinctions, or the occupation of Palestine or Tibet, or …

The list of issues is endless. And yet, something connects them all. They are all manifestations of human violence. But human violence, in itself, is not an issue about which groups campaign. That is, until now.

On 11 November 2011, a new movement to end human violence was launched around the world. Simultaneous launches took place in Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines and the USA. This worldwide movement, which invites individuals and organisations to sign a pledge to work to end human violence in all of its manifestations, has already attracted individual signatories in 36 countries and organisational endorsements in 13 countries.

'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' was conceived and launched by three Australians - Anita McKone, Anahata Giri and myself - based on several decades of research and nonviolent action. Tired of all of the violence we have experienced, witnessed and resisted throughout our lives, we decided to prepare and launch the Nonviolence Charter worldwide.

So what is unique about 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World'? The Nonviolence Charter is an attempt to put the focus on human violence as the pre-eminent problem faced by our species, to truthfully identify all of the major manifestations of this violence, and to identify ways to tackle all of these manifestations of violence in a systematic and strategic manner. It is an attempt to put the focus on the fundamental cause – the violence we adults inflict on children – and to stress the importance of dealing with that cause. (See 'Why Violence?' http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence) It is an attempt to focus on what you and I – that is, ordinary people – can do to end human violence and the

Nonviolence Charter invites us to pledge to make that effort. And it is an attempt to provide a focal point around which we can mobilise with a sense of shared commitment with people from all over the world.

Launching the People's Charter in Seattle in November, 2011

In essence then, one aim of the Nonviolence Charter is to give every individual and organisation on planet Earth the chance to deeply consider where they stand on the fundamental issue of human violence. Will you publicly declare your commitment to work to end human violence? Or are you going to leave it to others?

And what, precisely, do you want to do? And with whom? The Charter includes suggestions for action in a wide variety of areas; for example, by inviting people to participate in 'The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth' - http://tinyurl.com/flametree - which is a simple yet comprehensive strategy for individuals and organisations to deal with the full range of environmental problems. It also provides an opportunity to identify and contact others, both locally and internationally, with whom we can work in locally relevant ways, whatever our preferred focus for action. In that sense, each participating individual and organization becomes part of a worldwide community working to end human violence for all time.

Since being initiated, the Nonviolence Charter has attracted considerable support from people in many countries and some of these have notable records of achievement for peace and justice already. Professor Chandra Muzaffar, Helen Ng and Nurul Haida Dzulkifli are key figures at the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) based in Malaysia, Dr Tess Ramiro heads Aksyon para sa Kapayapaan at Katarungan – Center for Active Non-Violence at the Pius XII Catholic Centre in the Philippines, and Tom Shea and Leonard Eiger have lengthy records as effective nonviolent activists, organisers and networkers at the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in the USA. Other signatories include Nobel Peace Prize nominees such as nonviolent activists Kathy Kelly (USA), Father John Dear (USA) and Angie Zelter (UK); prominent community leaders such as Ade Adenekan of the Pan-African Reconciliation Centre in Nigeria; the prominent human rights lawyer and consultant, Salma Yusuf, in Sri Lanka; religious figures such as Rev. Brian Burch of Canada and Rev. Nathaniel W. Pierce of the USA; as well as professors including Glenn D. Paige, founder of the Center for Global Nonkilling in the USA; Dietrich Fischer, Academic Director of the World Peace Academy in Switzerland; Raafat Misak, professor of desert geomorphology and head of the Kuwait Campaign to Ban Landmines in Kuwait; Mazin Qumsiyeh, Chairperson of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochment between People in Palestine; and Marc Pilisuk, professor emeritus at the University of California and a member of the Program on Violence, War, and their Alternatives with Psychologists for Social Responsibility in the USA.

How long will this worldwide campaign take?  It will undoubtedly take many years: ending human violence is no easy task. But the alternative – to tolerate human violence until we precipitate our own extinction – is, surely, unthinkable.

The Nonviolence Charter acknowledges our many differences, including the different issues on which we choose to work. But it also offers us a chance to see the unity of our overarching aim within this diversity. Hence, whatever our differences, we are given the chance to see that ending human violence is our compelling and unifying dream.

Would you like to consider joining the worldwide movement to end human violence? If so, you can read and, if you wish, sign 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' online at http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

Robert J. Burrowes flametree@riseup.net

Anita McKone and Robert J. Burrowes

P.O. Box 325

Blackburn

Victoria 3130

Australia

Email: flametree@riseup.net 

Websites: http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com (Charter)

          http://tinyurl.com/flametree  (Flame Tree Project)

          http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence  ('Why Violence?')

          http://anitamckone.wordpress.com  (Songs of Nonviolence)

          http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

Following the Ways of Peace (an offering by Kathy Kelly)

Published on Friday, December 23, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

Amid War, Following Yonder Star Towards Peace

by Kathy Kelly

 

Beneath our flat, here in Kabul, wedding guests crowded into a restaurant and celebrated throughout the night. Guests sounded joyful and the music, mostly disco, thumped loudly. When the regular call to prayer sounded out at 5:20 a.m., the sounds seemed to collide in an odd cacophony, making all music indistinguishable. I smiled, remembering the prayer call’s durable exhortation to live in peace, heard worldwide for centuries, and went back to sleep.

 

Through most of my life, I’ve found it easy to resonate with the ringing and beautiful Christmas narrative found in the Gospel of Luke, but less so with that jangling discord with which westerners are so familiar—the annual collision between (on the one hand) the orgy of gift-purchasing and gift-consumption surrounding the holiday and the the sweeter, simpler proclamations of peace on earth heralded by the newborn’s arrival. I've found myself quite surprisingly happy to spend many Christmases either in U.S. jails or among Muslims living in places like Bosnia, Iraq, Jordan and now Afghanistan. My hosts and friends in these places have been people who are enduring wars or fleeing wars, including, as in the case of U.S. jails, a war against the poor in the United States.

The Christmas narrative that imagines living beings coming together across divides, the houseless family with no room at the inn, the shepherds and the foreign royals arriving, all awakening to unimagined possibilities of peace, comes alive quite beautifully in the community with which I'm graced to find myself here in Kabul.

Five of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers are spending winter months in the apartment here which accommodates their group as well as visiting guests such as our small Voices delegation. In recent months, the place has evolved into a resource center for learning languages and exchanging ideas about nonviolent movements for social change. I am filled with fond and deep admiration for these young people as I watch them studying each other’s languages and preparing their own delegation to visit other provinces of this land on the brink of civil war, meeting with other young people wherever they can.

I’ve often described Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers as having bridged considerable ethnic gaps in their steadfast aspiration to someday live without wars. It’s quite impressive, during this trip, to learn from them about how close several of them came to becoming armed fighters.

One young friend recalls having spent three weeks, at age 12, as part of a Taliban group. He had no choice but to go with the Taliban as a conscript. He was given a rifle, as well as adequate food, and assigned to be a sentry. "I loaded the weapon and I fired warning shots," said our young friend, who is now 21 years of age, "but I didn’t feel good about it.” A village elder intervened, saying the new recruits were too young, and the Taliban released my friend and the other young teens.

We watched a film together in which another youngster, about seven years previously, had acted the role of the leader of a group of children imitating Talib fighters. Carrying sticks, the young actors had harassed a little girl over her determination that she would learn to read. Now we asked the young man, himself a Hazara, how he felt about playing a Taliban child. He acknowledged having grown up believing that anyone who was part of an ethnic group that had persecuted his people could never be trusted.

The father of another youngster had been killed by the Taliban. Still another describes how he watched in horror as Hazara fighters killed his brother.

Last week, the AYPVs welcomed a new friend who lives in a neighboring province and speaks a different language to join them and help them learn his language. Asked about NATO/ISAF night raids and other attacks that have occurred in his area, the new friend said that families who have suffered attacks feel intense anger, but even more so people say they want peace. "However, international forces have made people feel less secure," he added. "It’s unfortunate that internationals hear stories about Afghans being wild people and think that more civilized outsiders are trying to build the country. People here are suffering because of destruction caused by outsiders."

The air, the ground, the mountainsides, the water, and even the essential bonds of familial living have been ravaged by three decades of warfare here in Afghanistan. People living here have suffered the loss of an estimated two million people killed in the wars. 850 children die every day because of disease and hunger.

Amid excruciating sorrow and pain, it’s good to see people still find ways to gather for celebrations, even when the sounds seem curious and the dances seem, to some, forbiddingly exotic. Differences between insiders and outsiders become less relevant as people meet one another to celebrate.

Peace can surprise us when it comes, and that alone is abundantly sufficient cause for celebration in this season, wherever we are. Dr. King wrote that "the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice," and we should not be surprised as new and growing movements around us reveal an unquenchable and ineradicable longing for simple justice. The killing fields that scar our earth and sear the memories of survivors beckon us to look and listen for new ways of living together. Massacres of innocents call to us to reject the easy and familiar and go home by an other way.

The desires to live more simply, to share resources more radically, and to prefer service to dominance are not unique to any place, season, or religion. Such desires may yet herald unions previously unimagined and a better world for every newborn, each one bringing an astonishing potential - as we do if we strive to fulfill it - for peace.

Kathy Kelly, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Kathy Kelly's email is kathy@vcnv.org

more Kathy Kelly

A PASTORAL LAMENT FOR MY COUNTRY

Editor'sNote:  The following post, "A Pastoral Lament for my Country", was written by Rev. Rich Lang, a United Methodist minister who brings The Word to life, and who challenges the church to lift itself out of its collective "passivity and fear" and be in the world the way Jesus lived and taught. The church cannot serve both the empire and God.  Rich's words are a prophetic call to nonviolent direct action.

Rich was pepper sprayed while engaged as a peacekeeper at a nonviolent protest by Occupy Seattle on November 15th along with 84 year old peace activist Dorli Rainey and many other protestors.

***************  

America, America, my country ‘tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing
America, oh America
America the Beautiful has fallen.

You could feel the tension and raw energy crinkling throughout the air as the marchers once again began their journey into downtown Seattle. The Occupy Movement is the prophetic voice of God calling out to the nation to “repent” and turn from its ways of corruption. Those who camp are a rag-tag, motley crew made up of mostly young adults, mostly unemployed, almost all of whom are alienated and cast out of America’s promise of liberty and justice for all. They are our canaries, the first fruits being devoured by the Beast of Empire. 

The police were once conceived to be a citizen force created to serve and protect the public. Today however, the police have been militarized and view the populace as enemy combatants, as threats to their well being. The police, like our Armed Forces, are well trained, disciplined and exceptionally talented. They follow a chain of command and are increasingly apprenticed into a culture of institutional conformity. Because America has always affirmed the right of dissent, the role of the police is to keep the peace. They are trained to enter the protesting arena as unfeeling protectors of property and people. What has changed in our time is that the police are entering the arena of protest as agents of provocation. They push and shove at will, they ride their bicycles up the backs of protesters, they engage in verbal abuse. Their commanders allow this breach of discipline. Their comrades silently condone the bullying. The police become the agitators encouraging violence. It is as if they are spoiling for a fight --- a fight mind you against the citizenry, against the youth, the unemployed, and those who are trying to return America back to its promise, and dare I say it, return America to its covenant with God, “we hold these truths to be self evident …”

On Tuesday night a small group of the rag-tag campers of Seattle’s Occupy Movement left their camp to protest the destruction inflicted upon the Wall Street Occupy site. Throughout the march I, as a Pastor in full clergy alb, stole and cross, acted as a peacekeeper placing myself between the police line and the Occupy Movement. On four occasions I stepped between verbal battles between the police and the protesters. The point being that it was evident to all who I was and what my role was in this non-violent march of the few escorted by the many.

The incident was minor in nature. A girl, dressed in Anarchist black waving the Anarchist black flag was plastered side by side with an officer on the bike. They were jawboning each other. At one point her flag was thrust in his direction --- a provocation yes – threatening?—no. The officer grabbed the flag and in the pulling, pulled down the girl. Her friends reacted jumping in to pull her away from the officer. It was at this point that the first wave of pepper spray went off.

Point --- one might think the officer acted within reason, that the officer was suddenly threatened. But with what? By whom? The friends of the offender were grabbing for the girl, they were not grabbing at the police. Basically the officer, and his comrades, were trigger happy as if they couldn’t wait for just this moment. And so the spray went forth.

I leapt to the front and tried to place myself between the parties --- with spray in the air the protesters were also fleeing. Separation between the police line and the protesters was clearly visible … there was certainly no threat of the “mob” suddenly rampaging into the well armed police. The separation had occurred (as can be clearly seen on the video captured by King 5 News). But the spray continued. I walked between the lines, I was alone, I was in full clergy dress, everyone knew who I was and what I was --- with the protesters fleeing and the police line holding --- with my back to the police and my hands waving the protesters to get back --- alone in full alb, stole and cross --- six officers turned their spray on me thoroughly soaking my alb and then one officer hit me full throttle in the face.  

I praise the courage and compassion, the discipline and the decency of the Occupy Movement. Out of the rag-tag mob came help, grabbing my hands, leading me (I was blind by then) to the wall and administering care and concern for my well being. The protesters were assembled around all the wounded, and maintained the discipline of nonviolence (granted the nonviolence was in behavior but not language). And they were not afraid. The spraying had been a baptism sealing them into the security of knowing that their prophecy of repentance was indeed the Spirit-Word through them --- it is as if they did not prophecy their very bones would melt within them. Against the wall in increasing pain and burning I realized I was in the midst of church.

The police, on the other hand, were afraid. Their quick use of chemical warfare reveals how cowardly they are. The unwillingness of their commanders to maintain discipline reveals how incompetent they are becoming --- the only tool in their bag is brutality and like a drunken raging father beating wife and kids, the police have increasingly disgraced themselves. Step by step they are being shaped into the front face of fascism, the emerging police state that protects the property interests of the Marie Antionette’s who have seized control of our government, commerce, media, military and increasingly the Church itself.

My question to my clergy colleagues is this: Where are you? How much longer can you preach without practice? How dare you remain protected in your sanctuary while your people (the rag-tag mob of the least, last and lost whom Jesus loved) are slaughtered doing that which God has commissioned you to do (prophecy!). Where are you? Who have you become in this age of baptism by pepper spray? Do you not know how much power you have to stop our national descent into chaos? Don’t you realize that the world is your parish and right before your eyes the Spirit of God is doing a new thing? Can’t you hear that God’s judgment is upon the land? God is against the thieves that bankrupted our nation. God is against the armies of the Beast who pillage other lands in our name, and turn and destroy our people on our own soil. Are you blind? --- Perhaps you need a baptism of pepper spray in your eyes to restore your vision.

And to the police I say this --- there are always the brutal ones in our midst. As colleagues you have the moral responsibility to police your own. If your commanders order you to brutalize your people you have a Higher Command that says, “disarm yourself, turn away from your sin, renounce the orders of unrighteousness.” And in doing so, cross the line, come over and join us because we are the winning side of history. And we welcome your repentance and heal you of your shame.

And to the church, beloved church I say, you cannot sing the hymns of faith if you are too afraid to live that faith. In Amos it says to silence your sacred assemblies and let JUSTICE burst forth. Our nation, with the nations of the world, are under an assault of tyranny and treason of the 1% against creation itself. You may not worship God until and unless you care for the image of God living in those tents and prophesying on your behalf. Once the Powers sweep the Tents away, if you dare to lift your voice even a peep, you too will be swept away. But the destiny of the church, the Body of Christ, is not one of quiet passivity and fear, our destiny is to bear witness having no fear of the Cross because even now we have crossed over into resurrection.

Rev. Rich Lang
University Temple United Methodist Church
www.utemple.org
rich@utemple.org

Videos:
http://www.king5.com/video/featured-videos/Raw-Pepper-spray-released-on-Occupy-Seattle-march--133931238.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhl03fZ9Q2w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

A Prayer To Live Mercifully

Friends,

I was reminded this morning of a prayer by Fr. Emmanual Charles McCarthy, and in light of the public Bacchanalia in response to the news of the killing of Osama Bin Ladin I find this prayer a most suitable meditation for our time. 

Among many other things, Fr. McCarthy is one of the co-founders of Pax Christi-USA.  May we all find peace deep within our hearts, and may each of us learn to live mercifully.

Peace,

Leonard

****************

Prayer To Live Mercifully

O God,
Teach me
Not to envy,
to hate,
to justify,
to imitate,
to support,
to ennoble,
or to kill for,
Those who take the food from the table of others and then teach contentment,
Those for whom the taxes are destined, who demand sacrifice,
Those who eat their fill, who speak to the hungry of good times to come,
Those who lead humanity into the abyss, calling
Hate, love,
Unfaithfulness, faithfulness,
Lies, truth,
Slavery, freedom,
Too much, not enough,
Homicide, heroism,
Evil, good.

And, O God,
Teach me
when I have food, to remember the hungry;
when I have work, to remember the jobless;
when I have a home, to remember the homeless;
when I am free, to remember the imprisoned;
when I am without pain, to remember the suffering;
when I am loved, to remember the unloved;
when I am living, to remember the dying;
when I am dead, to remember the living.

And remembering, help me to destroy
my complacency; bestir my compassion, and thereby
spend my time and my eternity
doing good upon earth, helping
by word and deed, by prayer and sacrifice of self
those who cry out
for what I take for granted.
Amen.

-- Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

U.S. rejects violence "under any circumstances" - REALLY???

Friends,

It's official!!!  Well, sort of official.  Perhaps unofficially official or something like that.  At any rate, The White House quite recently went on record (for whatever that might be worth) that the government of the United States rejects "the use of violence under any circumstances."  You can read the statement in the context of the entire March 24th news release by the White House Press Secretary regarding the violence in Syria. 

Don't you think, now that its on the record, that we should hold our government accountable for that statement???  At very least each of us should be holding ourselves, and the government that is supposed to represent us, "accountable," just as the Press Secretary says that we should hold those accountable for the Syrian violence.

Just what do we stand for as a nation as we consider our current actions around the world - Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya...???

We are ALL responsible for the violence perpetrated on our name! 


Peace,

Leonard

********************

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release March 24, 2011

Statement by the Press Secretary on Violence in Syria

The United States strongly condemns the Syrian government’s brutal repression of demonstrations, in particular the violence and killings of civilians at the hands of security forces. We reject the use of violence under any circumstances. We are also deeply troubled by the arbitrary arrests of human rights activists and others. Those responsible for the violence must be held accountable. The United States stands for a set of universal rights, including the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and believes that governments must be responsive to the legitimate aspirations of their people. We call on the Syrian government to exercise restraint and respect the rights of its people and call on all citizens to exercise their rights peacefully.

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/24/statement-press-secretary-violence-syria

Pentagon $671 Billion; Peace $0

Friends,

In February 2011 President Obama sent Congress a $671 Billion proposed military budget for Fiscal Year 2012.  Where the numbers will finally land once this thing is done being batted about between those wishing to cut programs and those fighting to keep them is any one's guess, but it is a pretty sure thing that "defense" contractors don't have much to worry about.  We always seem to be able to fund war.

On the other hand PEACE, that ever so elusive and priceless commodity, consistently gets the Rodney Dangerfield treatment (NO RESPECT), and with it ever decreasing funding for programs that can lead us to peace and away from war.  Two such government programs are about to get the funding axe if some members of Congress have their way.

The just passed House continuing resolution, which is necessary to fund the government through September 30, 2011 eliminated the Complex Crises Fund and zeroed out all funding for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).  It would seem that far too many people don't seem to understand that it is far better to prevent violent conflict both from the human and economic perspectives than to jump in with guns-a-blazing.

According to Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) the Complex Crisis Fund "provides unprogrammed, flexible funding for civilian agencies such as the State Department and USAID to allow them to act quickly when conflicts escalate or to undertake rapid stabilization, prevention, and crisis response activities. After years of lobbying by FCNL and others, Congress finally appropriated $50 million to create the fund in 2010. Though small, this fund has already helped to address conflicts in countries such as Kenya and Kyrgyzstan. If the fund is eliminated now, it will be very hard to get it back."

Again from FCNL: "USIP is a Congressionally mandated, nonpartisan, independent institution that works to help prevent, end, and rebuild after wars. FCNL does not always agree one hundred percent with USIP, but defunding the institution would be a major setback for our common work to improve U.S. capacities for preventing deadly conflict."

Both of these institutions do something positive in contrast with the forces constantly poised to throw military solutions at every possible situation.  It is laughable that members of Congress are trying to axe these programs when their economic impacts are barely measurable by any standards and which, if given adequate funding and direction, could save countless lives, prevent immeasurable human suffering, and save billions of dollars that should be spent on non-military programs to benefit humanity.

The Senate will soon consider its own version of the continuing resolution.  Please ask your senators to fully fund both these programs.  We need to constantly remind them of what should now be obvious: The are NO military solutions to the problems we face!!!  CLICK HERE to send a message courtesy of FCNL!

PEACE IS THE ANSWER, NOT WAR!!!  We need to reverse those numbers.

In Peace,

Leonard


Note:  Photo of January 15, 2011 vigil and nonviolent direct action at Trident submarine base Bangor gate; by Leonard Eiger

Honoring King by Resisting Endless War

Friends,

On the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday 10 people in Tucson, Arizona chose to honor his legacy with a peace vigil at Davis Monthan Air Force Base, which has played a central role in the use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq, and is also home of the Arizona Air National Guard's 214th Predator Unit.

If Dr. King was alive today I have no doubt that he would be one of the most vocal critics of the endless cycle of war perpetrated on the world by the United States. He would most likely be on the front lines of nonviolent civil resistance to the war machine. And so three of the ten, Dennis DuVall, John Heid, and Jean Boucher walked into the base carrying a letter to present to the base commander opposing depleted uranium munitions and armed drones.

They never made it past the front gate, and the military police called the Tucson Police to arrest the men. Here (below) are the resisters' Action Statement and the letter carried into the base on January 17th. If the base commander won't get it, at least others will have the chance to read it.

Thanks to all who participated in nonviolent civil resistance actions on or around Dr. King's birthday. As Dr. King said the night before he died in 1968, “For years now, we have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can we just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.” Indeed, we must learn that nonviolence IS the only way, and we as members of civil society must lead the way through nonviolent action.

Peace,

Leonard

*****************

Action Statement, January 17, 2011, Tucson, Arizona

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy· returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An entire generation has grown up under the deep darkness of war. Across two decades thousands of U.S. and U.N. soldiers have been killed. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. The wounded are innumerable. The cost immeasurable. The end nowhere in sight.

War is bipartisan. It knows no limits. And takes no sides. Everyone becomes its casualty. Its appetite insatiable. Its destruction total. War is perpetual. It cannot stop itself. "Only love can do that."

Today, our country commemorates the birth of Nobel Peace laureate Martin Luther King Jr. His words are as timely as the day they were first spoken. They echo across the decades. Clarion and compelling. Today, animated by Dr. King's words, we walk. Both on Tucson's public streets and where we are prohibited, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. We walk under the midday sun, pursuing an end to "a night devoid of stars."

We are mindful too that January 17 marks the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell speech. We recall his indictment:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every missile fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense."

Davis-Monthan has played a central role in the use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq. Today we call upon General William M. Fraser III, Air Combat Command Leadership and Colonel John A. Cherry to comply with the recent United Nations mandate to reveal the sites where the U.S. has fired depleted uranium shells in Iraq. Today we redouble our twenty year long call for an end to the war. Disarm and disclose!

With a spirit of nonviolence, we carry the U.N. resolution along with our own resolve in seeking the ways of peace to Davis-Monthan, at once both symbol and substance of our nation's commitment to the use of armed force, spending the hopes of our children. And Iraq's.

One step at a time we can usher in the light, ending this decades long darkness devoid of stars.

Letter Carried into Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, January 17, 2011

Dear Col. Inman:

At a time when Tucson is mourning senseless violence in its own community, we must also mourn the victims of the U. S drone attacks 7,000 miles away.

Tucson's complicity in the drone air war is another Tucson tragedy. The tragedy is that Arizona Air National Guard's 214th Predator Unit here at Davis-Monthan AFB is helping to murder hundreds of innocent people by remote control in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. By guiding "Hellfire" missiles to their targets in homes and villages, ANG's Predator Unit will typically kill 10-50 innocent people for each targeted victim. Even more tragically for the people of Arizona and aircrews of the 214th Predator Unit, international killing is a war crime! No U. S. court has ever ruled on the legality of "targeted assassinations' by drones.

Col. Inman, I urge you to end the military operations for the 214th Predator Unit and stop bombing the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Blowing people apart with Hellfire missiles only unites people in outrage and incites more revenge, violence and retaliation. Drone air attack do not prevent or eliminate terrorism. They are terrorism! I implore you to ground the 214th Predator Unit and use diplomacy and other nonviolent means for opposing terrorism. As a veteran, and in the spirit of Martin Luther King, I would welcome the opportunity to enter into a dialog with you and your aircrews.

As President Obama said in Tucson just a few days ago, "Only an honest discourse and debate" can honor those who die in senseless acts of violence.

Toward peace and a nonviolent world,

Dennis DuVall
January 17, 2011

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

Friends,

Martin Luther King, Jr's Birthday is barely a week away, and next weekend many of us will come together in various acts honoring the memory of one of our nation's greatest leaders and one of the world's greatest proponents of nonviolence. Here is a poem by David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which honors Dr. King's memory.

Peace,

Leonard

You Are Not One But Many, By David Krieger

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

Your deep voice still hangs in the air,

Melting the cowardly silence.

You are the one standing solidly there

Looking straight in the face of violence.

You are the one who dreams
That this nation will honor its creed.
You are the one who steps forward.
You are the one to bleed.

You are not one but many
Unwilling to cower or crawl.
You are the one who will take no less
Than a world that is just for all.