Peace Breakfast

Blog Site Moved

2010-07-20T12:40:00.001-04:00

All activity for this blog has been moved to http://olgabonfiglio.blogspot.com/

20th Anniversary of the Opening of the Berlin Wall

2009-11-08T13:27:00.001-05:00

The opening of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago today was not only an accident but it was a dramatic dénoument to a number of events that led to the end of the Cold War. The process of dismantling the Eastern Bloc, however, was accelerated because of the collective failure of nerve by Communist Party elites who didn’t know what to do when the Soviet Union was not there to protect them anymore.

David Barclay, professor of history at Kalamazoo College and the Margaret and Roger Scholten Professor of International Studies, recently shared his reflections with the College community on the opening of the Berlin Wall. He is also director of the national German Studies Association, which attracts scholars in all fields of German Studies spanning the period from early times to the present Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

The old post-war German leadership was already on the wane long before the opening of the Wall or the public demonstrators advocated unification between East and West Germany, he said. The new leadership, however, was so “befuddled,” it easily lost control of the reins of power.

“I tell my students that history is about great sweeping trends like the collapse of communism, the end of the Cold War and the dissolving of the Soviet Union,” said Barclay. “But history is made interesting by the quirkiness and accidents that occur.”

The opening of the Berlin Wall began about 6:30 p.m. on November 9, 1989. The head of the East German Communist Party, Günter Schabowski, was trying to articulate new travel regulations between East and West at a press conference. He inadvertently said that East Berliners could go to West Berlin without previous permission. Western journalists, including Tom Brokaw, asked for a clarification of his surprise statement and Schabowski simply repeated himself apparently unaware of its implications.

By 8 p.m. the borders were opened even though no official confirmation had been given. By 10 p.m. 20,000 East Berliners were lined up at the border crossings ready to go West.

Barclay said that the military commanders at the gates hadn’t heard the broadcast so when they faced thousands of people, the commanders wanted to avoid any violence or loss of life so they simply opened the gates. At first, they stamped people’s visas but as the overwhelming numbers of people advanced, the guards gradually withdrew.

As dramatic and important as the opening of the Wall in Berlin was, Barclay said that the real impetus for change occurred in Liepzig, East Germany, the previous month. Citizens of Liepzig had been holding several Monday evening demonstrations that called for political reform.

On October 9, 1989, the protestors held their biggest demonstration because they thought that if Liepzig was to be their “Tiananmen Square” (referring to the Chinese government’s June 4 massacre against on-the-street reformers), it would happen that night. The situation was so tense emergency medical staff set up aid stations in anticipation of massive bloodshed. At one point, Kurt Masur, the conductor of the Liepzig Orchestra (who later became conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra) also appealed to the leadership not to use violence against the protestors. In the end, the leadership did call up the army but in the end, but it didn’t order any shooting at people, so nothing happened.

Liepzig proved to be the testing ground for the Soviets’ surprisingly nonviolent response that not only tore down the Berlin Wall but pulled down the entire Iron Curtain.

“It is an example of how a number of serendipitous things can contribute to a powerful revolution and how a confluence of events can make a difference,” said Barclay. But it also illustrated how unprepared Westerners, including German scholars, were for the monumental changes taking place in Communist countries.

On the same night that Schabowski was flubbing his press conference in East Berlin, Barclay was hosting Michael Geyer, a famous German scholar from the University of Chicago, who had delivered a speech at Kalamazoo College. After his speech, the professors were having dinner at a local restaurant when they heard the news about the Berlin Wall. They scoffed at the prospect until they returned home and saw the television images of people standing on top of the Wall by the Brandenburg Gate.

“I was shocked,” said Barclay. But he wasn’t the only one. Two days before the October Liepzig incident, he was in Milwaukee attending the annual meeting of the German Studies Association. A panel of five British and American historians addressed an audience of 800 about the possibility of change in East Germany. Four of the panelists contended that the East German regime would quell any unrest and that it should not be underestimated. One British panelist believed the regime was “brain dead without a future.” Although he was hooted down by most of his colleagues, the wife of Willy Brandt, who was also present at the meeting, agreed with him. Brandt had been mayor of West Berlin in 1961 when the wall was built and later served as chancellor of West Germany 1969-74.

“My generation thought the Cold War was frozen in place and would never go away,” said Barclay. “I was teaching a course about Germany at the time and when the question of unification came up in class, I told the students it would not happen in my lifetime or even in theirs. The opening of the Berlin Wall teaches us that historians shouldn’t predict the future.”

However, Barclay was still in disbelief of what had happened until he visited Berlin in July 1989, his first trip after the opening of the Wall. He wanted to walk through the Brandenburg Gate to convince himself that what he had seen on television had actually taken place! Nearby, he found an Italian ice cream stand, so he bought a lemon gelato, a treat he’s typically unable to resist. As he stood at the Brandenburg Gate with his gelato in one hand, he touched the gate with the other.

“I’ll never forget this experience,” he said.

The opening of the Berlin Wall and the fall of communism is a lesson in “historical humility,” said Barclay, where people thought history was on their side. It also illustrates the dangers of false utopias, the arrogance of power and the law of unintended consequences.

“Marxism and Leninism were driven by a utopian vision where its leaders were convinced of its rectitude and absolute, scientifically-determined necessity,” he said. “They believed communism was on the right side of history.”

In the mid-1960s the communist leaders pretty much stopped believing in historical inevitability, all except for Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (1958-64), said Barclay, but the oafish regimes of the Eastern Bloc were still products of this belief system. In 1989, they held a monopoly of power and lived under the ultimate protective cover of the Soviet Army. They also relied on two tenets. The first was the belief in the absolute political monopoly of the Communist Party where the party was always right, even if it shifted its position.

The second tenet is the Brezhnev Doctrine, which was first articulated in 1968 after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia: any country in the Eastern Bloc that attempted to break with communist principles would confront the Soviet army. Slovak leader Alexander Dubček (1968-69) had gone a step too far in the region’s de-Stalinization effort when he tried to decentralize the Czechoslovakian economy and democratize its political system by granting certain freedoms, which included a loosening of restrictions on the media, speech and travel. However, things had drastically changed in 1980-81 when the Solidarity movement in Poland challenged its Communist leadership. The Soviet military did not intervene. By 1988-89, Soviet Premier Gorbachev finally declared he would no longer enforce these two tenets.

Gorbachev’s move was really one that came out of necessity, said Barclay. The Soviet Union had exhausted its resources, the Army had been bled dry by its nine-year war with Afghanistan (1979-89), and the economy was in shambles and unable to support any further military adventures.

Today, the developing consensus among historians is that President Ronald Reagan’s (1981-89) strategy of forcing the Soviets to spend beyond their means not only worked but it accelerated their demise. And although a lot of Americans were upset at the time by Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. Star Wars), the plan for the extravagant space-based anti-missile system scared the Russians enough that it led them to increase their military spending.

Finally, the influence of the Tiananmen Square massacre (June 4, 1989) on the opening of the Berlin Wall cannot be underestimated, said Barclay. The bloodshed inflicted by the Chinese government was a no-holds-barred reaction to popular dissent against communism.

“I watched old videos of fall 1989,” said Barclay “where the East German leadership praised the Chinese solution to uprisings and threatened their people with a bloody massacre if they tried rebellion. However, when the time came, it didn’t happen.”

The opening of the Berlin Wall is also an opportunity to see the confluence of local and global events, said Barclay.

“It was a product of local circumstances where people discovered they no longer had to be afraid of their government given the political situation and state of the Communist Party in the Eastern Bloc.”

Also, the number of serendipitous events that culminated in the fall of communism was by far the most peaceful of revolutions after the most horrifically violent century in history, said Barclay. This gave people some cause for optimism. (The exceptions to peaceful change, of course, were the 1991 overthrow of the Nicolae Ceauşescu government Romania and the Moscow coup in August 19-21, 1991 when Communist Party hardliners tried to arrest Mikhail Gorbachev.)

Barclay was in Berlin in December 1991 when the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. He noted that the huge Soviet embassy flew the red flag with the hammer and sickle one day and that it was replaced the next day with the red, white and blue-striped flag of Russia.

“I had literally seen the pages of history turn,” he said, alluding to Goethe’s comment on change.

Do We Know What We’re Doing in Afghanistan?

2009-10-31T22:04:00.004-04:00

We’ve spent over eight years in Afghanistan with no prospect of leaving, no clear mission and no consistent strategy. Yet, we are poised to send more soldiers and pour billions more dollars into a place that has been called the “graveyard of empires.”

One has to wonder if we know what we’re doing.

Our leaders remain in a quandary over the war. For example, National Security Advisor Jim Jones and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, want to triple the size of the police and military in Afghanistan. General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of Afghanistan, advocates a counter-insurgency approach and up to 40,000 troops to assist the 68,000 already there. Vice President Joe Biden suggests a counter-terrorism approach that focuses on combating al Qaeda through the use of unmanned drones and special forces instead of additional troops.

“This is the definition of insanity,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert who specializes in Middle East and United Nations issues and is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. Recently, she spoke during Peace Week at Western Michigan University where she provided a punchy critique on the war that has already cost $225 billion, 904 Americans’ lives and God knows how many Afghani lives.

Bennis questioned the original purposes and motivations of the war, which were meant to respond to 9/11. However, the hijackers were Saudis and Egyptians who attended flight schools in the United States and they lived in Hamburg, Germany. So why did we invade Afghanistan?

And as horrific as September 11 was, it was not an act of war that warranted the invasion of that country, said Bennis. President Bush called it a “war of justice” when it was really a “war of vengeance.”

“Wars of justice are never legal, never just and they don’t work,” she said.

Bennis called for a strategy that looks at the region as a whole and supports “real diplomacy.” That strategy would include those countries that border Afghanistan including China and Iran who have a stake in what goes on there for their own security needs. However, it’s unlikely that the United States would consult or work with those countries.

She is also concerned about the drones that are launched to kill the bad guys but also kill the good guys.

“It’s harder to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people when you send more troops, destroy their schools, and kill the good guys,” said Bennis. “There is no one at the administration’s table saying this.”

Such missteps have occurred from the very start of this war, she said. From November 2001 until January 2002, American Special Forces only numbered about 2,000. The big action was in the air, mostly over Kabul where cluster bombs were used.

Cluster bombs are softball-size and they explode into several hundred “bomblets” that spread 100 yards before they hit the ground, explained Bennis. However, 10 percent of the cluster bombs dropped don’t explode. Once they are on the ground, they become land mines that endanger civilian populations. (Many countries have banned cluster bombs but the United States still uses them.)

At the beginning of the invasion, President Bush ordered food drops over Afghanistan in order to make the point that the United States was fighting the terrorists and the Taliban, not innocent civilians. Officials calculated that 7.5 million of Afghanistan’s 27 million population was starving. However noble that gesture, the food was wrapped in the same yellow plastic as the cluster bombs, and the people didn’t know if they had come upon a bomb or a food package.

As a result of all these mishaps and the fact that Afghanistan has been largely seen as “the forgotten war,” many Americans wonder why we are still there.

“It’s not about oil pipelines, natural resources or women’s rights,” said Bennis. “George Bush found a great moment to expand the American empire and Afghanistan was the logical place to start. Obama, now, has to make a name for himself. But he had to find a war of his own and Afghanistan was available. He regards it as a good war.”

Meanwhile, American support for the war has flipped from 53 percent in 2001 to an opposition of 58 percent in mid-September. CNN recently reported that 59 percent of people questioned opposed sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan compared to 39 percent who favored the move.

Afghanistan has been a key geographic battleground since Alexander the Great in 327 B.C.E. Genghis Khan took charge of it in 1218-21 but only after reaching “painful accommodations” with the Afghans. The British lost it in 1842 and the Soviet Union was defeated there in 1989 after a nine-year struggle.

There is a reason Afghanistan has not been conquered, said Bennis. Afghanistan is one of the most tradition-bound countries in the world. Clans and tribes rule, not a national government. To try to institute a U.S.-style presidency there is overlooking the fact that whoever controls Kabul, controls nothing else.

Moreover, the United States’ counter-insurgency strategy is aimed at protecting people living in large population centers, which amounts to only 20 percent since 80 percent of the people live in the rural lands, she said.

Those arguing for staying in Afghanistan warn that our safety is at stake: if the Taliban returns because it will team up with Al Qaeda and we’ll have another 9/11.

“That’s probably not true,” said Bennis. “The Taliban and Al Qeada don’t have much in common. That Al Qeada exists at all is very dicey.”

During last year’s presidential campaign Obama promised he’d get us out of Iraq because it was a “war of bad choices.” Instead, he wanted to focus on Afghanistan as a “war of necessity” and do it right this time.

“Apparently, we didn’t hear him or believe him,” she said. “But now it’s Obama’s war.”

After he became president, Obama proposed to send 17,000 more troops in March and then sent 21,000.

George W. Bush never wanted to say what the “War on Terrorism” would cost, how long it would take or what sacrifices Americans would make. Now, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that Americans have been called to sacrifice our country’s valuable resources for a war that could instead be used for health care, education, unemployment, housing foreclosures, decaying cities and crumbling infrastructures.

“The peace movement has a lot of work to do,” said Bennis. “It must demand de-escalation in Afghanistan.”

Women's Eucharist

2009-10-18T02:48:00.003-04:00

On the second Sunday of each month, a group of six to fifteen women from the Detroit area meet to pray, sing, dance, reflect on the Sunday scriptures, and to break bread together.

Many of the women come for strength. Some come for sustenance. Others are there because they don’t fit in the Church. The one thing they all have in common, however, is that they see their gatherings as an expression of the friendship and equal partnership they feel with Jesus and each other.

Their gatherings aren’t secret nor are they officially sanctioned, but they do give the women the opportunity to experience the hidden, feminine side of Church, which they find spiritually enriching and can’t get in the patriarchal Church.

The group calls itself Women’s Eucharist or WE for short, and it is part of a nationwide movement that has grown over the past couple decades without much promotion or fanfare. In fact, according to Sheila Durkin Dierks, who studied 100 WE groups across America for her book Women’s Eucharist, many of the women start a group without knowledge of other groups.

Sister Beth Rindler, 73, one of the founders of a WE begun in Detroit in 1990, started the group because she was restricted by Church law from celebrating the sacraments simply because she is a woman. As a pastoral associate with a Master of Divinity (M. Div.) degree from Catholic Theological Union (CTU) in Chicago, she found that her ministry still was not welcomed by parish priests.

“Priests really wanted women to be servants to them and not partners,” she says. “As a religious I thought of myself as a partner to live and share the Gospel in a demonstrable and public way.”

Another member of WE, Peggy Bennett, had no aspirations to the priesthood. Instead, she was looking for a practical, everyday spirituality and was “re-exploring [her] Catholic heritage after being away for a long, long time.”

Bennett had been studying in a two-year Jesuit spirituality program at Manresa in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, before she joined WE. As she looked for the “Spirit” she says she couldn’t find it in the Catholic Church—or any other organized religion. Eventually, she found that Manresa, too, lacked the kind of spirituality she was looking for because, like the Church, it was “too intellectual.” Nevertheless, her advisor suggested that she start a women’s spirituality group and that led to her finding Sister Beth.

The Detroit WE originally met on the 18th floor of a downtown apartment building that overlooked the Detroit River, consequently, the members called themselves “the Upper Room.” However, when one of the members moved out of her apartment and the group needed a new gathering place, Bennett volunteered to hold the meetings at her house in Ann Arbor. Now the group calls itself “The Cathedral” because of the high ceilings in Bennett’s house.

For Bennett, WE exemplifies a democratic form of spirituality: she offers her home and plans the music and dance for the gatherings, but it is the members of the group that make WE a participative and life-giving experience through their sharing, reflections, prayers, and meal after the service.

The intimacy of the group’s celebrations are a means toward joining the personal, political, and spiritual life, says Rosalie Riegle, 68, another member of WE, a professor and founder of a Catholic Worker House in Saginaw, Michigan. Women’s Eucharist is a feminine extension of the home Masses she attended during the early post-Vatican II period.

“[With Women’s Eucharist] everything flows together: the Eucharistic meal and our potluck, the friendship and the love we share and the love we have for God,” says Riegle, who started a Women’s Eucharist group in Saginaw, Michigan, before her recent move to Chicago.

Historical Context of Women’s Eucharist
What led women to this celebration of the breaking of bread did not just happen. Rather, it was and continues to be an evolving outcome of a changing Church in the midst of the vast social and political changes.

According to Dierks, The Council of Trent (convened three times between 1545 and 1563) re-emphasized the Eucharist as a community meal, a holy meal, for all of God’s people. Nevertheless, over the centuries Catholics remained only watchful observers of the priests’ engagement with the Eucharist.

This exclusive practice of the Eucharist was a far cry from the early Christian communities where people met in each other’s homes to share bread and wine and pray. There was no authorized leader, priest or a sacred language in the service. Both women and men also participated in the ministry through the preaching of the word, caring for the needy and managing resources because they believed they were called to these works by virtue of their baptism.

However, something happened in the third century to supplant these communities from their egalitarian structures by a select group of leaders who modeled themselves after the Judaic hierarchical patriarchy. This group became known as kleros or clergy; it differentiated itself from the rest of the people who were referred to as the laos or laity. By 1208 the order of the priesthood was fully institutionalized in the Church. Eventually, the sharing of bread and wine became ritualized, Latin became the language of the Mass and the people became further isolated and closed off from vital participation in the priesthood of Jesus, according to Swiss theologian and priest, Hans Küng.

The Vatican II Council (1962-65) reaffirmed Jesus’ call to inclusiveness while the “unleashing” of the Spirit to all people led to a re-discovery of the meaning of the “royal priesthood” into which all Christians are baptized. In calling for reform, the Council also advised a look back to the early Christian communities as a guide.

Still other events occurring during the 1960s would set the stage for the Women’s Eucharist. In 1968 Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae, a doctrine that prohibited Catholics from practicing birth control. Its tumultuous effect resulted in many Catholics either leaving the Church or not receiving communion because they believed that practicing birth control had excluded them from the sacraments. Divorce rates among Catholics increased as the stigma of remarriage decreased.

Secular society experienced equally earth-shattering events. The women’s movement sought to equalize the power between men and women. The war in Vietnam stimulated an anti-authority attitude. Civil rights leaders encouraged the populace to take a stand for powerless and oppressed African-Americans. They also taught the other movements how to promote the Scripture-based principles of nonviolence and justice in order to transform a society ruled by white, male privilege.
As a whole, these social, political and religious movements affected Catholics and their relationship with the Church. In the United States, a 1987 poll noted that 66 percent of Catholics believed that they could be good Catholics without obeying the church’s teaching on birth control. In 1993 that number rose to 73 percent. A 1993 poll revealed that 74 percent of Catholics felt they should have a voice in selecting a priest for their parishes, just as the Protestants did. Sixty-two percent believed in the ordination of women.

Feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza of Harvard Divinity School has said that Jesus’ call for inclusion in the Church especially appealed to women because the Scriptures showed that Jesus’ disciples were both men and women sharing fellowship with him.

Father Kenan Osborne, OFM, professor emeritus of systematic theology at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union GTU), has pointed out that nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus call for an ordained ministry. “In fact, the word, priest, represented the sacrificial priesthood of the temple, not the discipleship of Jesus-infused ministry.”

St. Peter also emphasizes the priesthood as part of the discipleship of Jesus:

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (I Peter 2:9)

Many people interpret this passage to mean that ministry, priesthood and discipleship are for everyone, not just an elite corps of priests—who happen to be men.

The Service
Women’s Eucharist uses the bread and wine in a communal ritual in the same tangible way that the Mass uses them, as a sign of Jesus’ presence when “two or three gathered in my name.

"We are excluded, women and men alike, even in the midst of many priests, if the sacraments are played out on the ordained’s terms alone,” says Dierks. “When he sets the stage, chooses the language, selects the prayers and consecrates as if he were alone in the room, then we have been denied the Eucharist in its fullness.”

Those who participate in Women’s Eucharist value the inclusiveness of each other—without regard to race, class, ethnicity, and religion—and especially as a counterweight to the gender inequities of the Church. Consequently, for some WE is a refuge, for others it is a Church substitute, and yet for others it is a religious add-on to their regular Church worship.

Dierks says that WE is a gathering among friends who operate well without a hierarchy or the specialization of roles. In fact, friendship was the most frequent response to Dierks’ survey question about why people joined Women’s Eucharist. Frankly, she points out, friendship is the very model of relationship that Jesus preached to his disciples.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor emerita of feminist theology at Pacific School of Religion and GTU, recognizes the implications for friendship motivations in WE by calling it a “reapportioned theology” or a “de-clericalizing” of the Church that
“facilitates the taking back of ministry, word, and sacrament by the people…Eucharist is not an objectified piece of bread or cup of wine that is magically transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Rather, it is the people, the ecclesia, who are being transformed into the body of the new humanity, infused with the blood of new life.”

And that brings up the issue of transubstantiation, the changing of the bread and wine into Jesus’ body and blood. Of course, only an ordained priest can perform transubstantiation during the Mass, however, the WE women are unconcerned about this for their service. First of all, since non-Catholic women attend the service, they would have a difficult time identifying with transubstantiation. Secondly, as Sister Beth says, if transubstantiation really happens in a traditional liturgy, then it must happen in the Women’s Eucharist as well, because “Jesus Christ is so inviting, I couldn’t imagine him being exclusive.” Thirdly, transubstantiation is not the reason the women gather for WE.

As radical as the WE group may seem in the eyes of some practicing Catholics, none of the WE women expresses an interest in breaking off from the Church to form a woman’s church because the group is not interested in institutionalizing itself. The members prefer to keep the group small and home-bound because numbers don’t matter to them. “The Cathedral” WE has anywhere from three to 19 women attend its services and it “holds a space” for those absent.

Women’s Eucharist also defies definition or recognition by the official Church, but that, too, matters little to its participants because they are simply no longer waiting for institutional approval or sanction. They believe that inclusion for all the People of God should be the issue for Church, so they are simply giving up their attempts to work within the structure.

“If they [the Church hierarchy] can’t hear us,” says Sister Beth, “we’ve got to look out for ourselves.”

September 11 – An Opportunity to Evolve Our Humanity

2009-09-09T21:37:00.001-04:00

It’s been eight years since 9/11 and much has changed in this country since that dark day.

What didn’t change, however, was our inability to take time to reflect on the meaning and implications of this tragedy.

Instead, we panicked to the point that we still are unable to view the day clearly or logically, let alone respond to it responsibly. In some instances we have been willing to give up our civil liberties in the name of national security and fold against an aggressive presidency that was adamant about swooping up as much power as it could—ostensibly to protect us from the terrorists. The result? Terrorism has neither been reduced (as if it could be measured) nor have our fears of it subsided despite an investment of nearly $1 trillion on two wars. And now, after a year into the financial crisis, our uncertainties about jobs, health care and middle class life have only multiplied.

But let’s look at one notable moment when people attempted to deal with the horror of 9/11: New Yorkers were helping each other and being nice to each other. They cried together and comforted one another in the midst of death and loss. Likewise, citizens from all over the world sympathized with America and genuinely felt badly that terrorism had come to our shores. It looked as if there might be a “great turning” response to violence.

But once the politicians and the media got a hold of 9/11, they resorted to the usual rallying cry for revenge and retaliation. Americans acquiesced by waving their flags and displaying them on their cars, their houses, on their lapels, everywhere. (One older German woman told me it reminded her of Hitler and the Nazis.) Such activity helps to win public support but it ended up a missed opportunity to respond to tragedy in a new and different way.

Truth be told, Americans don’t deal well with tragedy. After the initial shock is over and the recovery effort begins, we generally resort to going on with our lives as though nothing happened. The fallout of this approach is that we are overcome by sadness, anger, fear, or denial over what has happened—and it stops there.

Confronting September 11 remains illusive for most Americans partly because we have been unable as a nation to understand or inquire about why the perpetrators of this heinous crime would do such a thing—and partly because we unwittingly entered the realm of the “terror dream.”

The “terror dream,” which Susan Faludi discusses in her book of the same name, is the American frontier-wilderness story where we are attacked by “uncivilized enemies” in our struggle to settle the North American continent. This story line is full of victimized women and children, Wild West six-gun shoot-outs, hyper-masculinity, and epic heroism.

This “captivity narrative” became a popular literary genre from the mid-17th to the late 19th century but it lives on today through what psychologists call a “transgenerational transmission of trauma” where survivors of a tragedy are left feeling humiliated and enraged. They often repress their grief and fail to allow for any collective grieving because to do so would require taking responsibility for the trauma. Instead, the survivors pass on their feelings of helplessness, shame, and rage to subsequent generations who then carry these feelings unconsciously as a potent memory and marker of their identity. It’s as though subsequent generations lived through the trauma themselves so that when another tragedy strikes, the feelings of the past are automatically projected on to it.

America’s response to September 11 was to go to war against the terrorists first in Afghanistan and later in Iraq because we were essentially replaying an old story where we saw ourselves as victims of an “Indian attack” so we had to fight back to survive. George W. Bush assumed the role of a Dodge City marshal in a Hollywood Western who promised to “smoke out” those responsible for the attacks—and Americans willingly followed the script in an attempt to make sense of the tragedy with something familiar.

The problem with revenge and violence, however, is its detrimental effect on our humanity, as we saw in the horrendous situations of Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Haditha, and Guantanamo. Meanwhile, most Americans glaze over the fact that war in Iraq has resulted in at least one million Iraqi deaths, mostly civilians (based on the 2006 Lancet Report), and the wasting of 4,342 American soldiers with nearly 31,500 wounded. An unprecedented percentage of our soldiers have committed suicide or deserted their ranks. Many of their marriages and friendships have ended. Veterans are denied benefits they were promised, including health care for non-physical wounds like post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). The war has also inflamed religious fanaticism and apocalyptic thinking at home as justification for continued war and violence.

Today, we are a nation exhausted by war to the point that we avoid talking about it! In fact, the war has largely disappeared from view. Coverage of war in 2007 occupied 23 percent of news content compared to 3 percent in 2008, according to the American Journalism Review (June 2008). During the presidential primaries and general election, the subject of war barely came up. President Obama’s promise to end the Iraq war has led to a step up of the Afghanistan war.

So how might we approach 9/11 in a more meaningful way? Here are a few ideas, but please add more.

1. Join with others to talk about what you TOGETHER can do to substitute fear, hatred or denial in your family, neighborhood or community.

2. Refuse to watch the repetitive “news alerts” or inflammatory pundits by turning off the radio, TV, and the Internet. Recognize that such coverage is intended to agitate emotions, especially anger and fear—and to sell ads. Don’t let yourself be manipulated by people making money off you.

3. Lobby your congressional representatives to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the present, it’s clear that we are going to have to deal with terrorists in our world. However, let us confront them by pulling ourselves together first. Violence, fear, shame and resignation are getting us nowhere.

As peacemakers, we can make a difference everyday by seeing to it that the spirit of cooperation and understanding operates in our local communities, which in turn can spread across the nation and the world. This is a golden opportunity to evolve our humanity.

Water, Water—Not Everywhere

2009-08-30T18:32:00.004-04:00

Without water, nothing can live. And in the Western United States, there isn’t much of it because the region is a desert.

“Everything yearns to be alive in the desert,” says Riley Mitchell, a park ranger at Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah.

For example, short, clumpy trees grow in the cracks of rock where they find even the least bit of soil. Look a little closer and you see vegetation surviving in this land and that includes many flowering plants. Lizards scurry across your path in order to alter their body temperature, which gets too cold under a rock or too hot in the sun.

In the desert everything living screams for water, including your own body. You don’t sweat in its dry heat. Your lips crack and your skin dries as your body dehydrates. If you haven’t taken care to consume enough water you’ll know it because you’ll feel faint.

Consequently, the key concern of the West is water. Patient and persistent rivers have largely carved the topography of this region over millions of years until today they are gentle streams or silvery sheens of leftover salt and gypsum lying on a dry riverbed glistening in the sun. Here a river valley is said to be any place where water might have run through it over the past 100 years.

More of these dry river valleys are appearing as the decade-long drought continues. Some people claim this drought is the worst on record—and maybe over the past 1,400 years.

For example, the waterfall of Emerald Pool at Zion National Park is supposed to gush over a ledge. Today it amounts to only a trickle.

Fires that have raged through the forests are “more catastrophic” than ever before because the forests are unable to recover, according to a University of Northern Arizona website that has tracked fires since 1916.

Last week California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles and Monterey counties after five wildfires burned 13,000 acres and more than 3,000 people were evacuated from their homes. The area has been experiencing dry hot, dry weather with temperatures higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) because in reality, California is a semi-arid place that has largely depended on irrigation and other water projects for its sustenance.

The Ogallala Aquifer, which covers 174,000 square miles (450,000 km) of the semi-arid Great Plains and yields about 30 percent of America's ground water for irrigation, can't replenish itself fast enough to meet the increasing demands of agriculture, industry and municipalities. If withdrawals are not abated soon, some researchers expect its depletion in 25 years.

Meanwhile, a recent study by the Nature Conservancy predicts that temperatures across the country will increase from 3 to 10 degrees by 2100 due to climate change. Hardest hit will be Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota, which depend on the Ogallala Aquifer and make this region the “breadbasket of America.” Nevertheless, some senators in those states refuse to sign legislation to address this problem after having supported the “No Climate Tax Pledge” being pushed by the group, Americans for Prosperity.

Modern life and prosperity have put yet another strain on the West’s water supply.

“Condos are dotting the [southern Utah] landscape with 10-acre ranchettes on land that was formerly the home of coyotes, deer, and other wildlife,” said Mitchell. “Their environmental impact may have potentially a more long-term effect.”

Such development also inadvertently hurts people, she said, like when one person’s well drilling depletes someone else’s water down the line.

So what attracts people to the dry and dusty deserts?

“I’m an old newcomer after 20 years here,” said Mitchell. “We like it here because we want to live in a clean, remote, crime-free area where we don’t have to lock our doors and where community is close.”

Other newcomers have built homes in the desert, some of them second homes or retirement homes, and they want the green lawns, swimming pools, golf courses and fountains they are used to having. Unfortunately, these amenities require water.

For example, since 1990, St. George, UT, has been one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States. The city is 119 miles (192 km) northeast of Las Vegas on I-15, one of the major north-south highways of the West. It provides year-round golf, access to Nevada casinos and scenic vistas with several nearby national parks for outdoor activity. U.S. News and World Report named this area “one of the best places to retire,” which active Baby Boomers have found particularly appealing. In 2007, the area had 140,908 residents with projections of a sixfold increase by 2040, according to the St. George Chamber of Commerce.

While most newcomers have a social or economic connections to the land, others have an emotional or religious one.

The nineteenth century Mormons, a people nobody wanted, settled on land nobody wanted and turned it into a “Promised Land.” By applying their belief that stewardship required care for the land and its resources, which were put there by God, they created a sustainable life there for themselves. However, the drought has caused some in the Basin to realize that even God's resources are finite.

Las Vegas, which lies in the southern-most tip of Nevada next door to Utah uses water with reckless abandon despite all the warning signs, according to energy resources journalist Kurt Cobb.

Lake Mead, which provides 90 percent of the city's water, is down 120 feet from its peak in October 1998 and it now holds only 60 percent of its capacity. The white “bathtub ring” around the lake caused by deposition of minerals on the lake floor dramatically illustrates the lake's depletion, which is even visible from the air.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) is working hard to lay pipe for a new intake to provide 40 percent of the city's water by 2012. However, this project illustrates the desperation officials feel in finding enough water for the city, a desperation that seriously affects the rest of the country.

For example, the SNWA is also making plans for a $3.5 billion, 327-mile (525-km) underground pipeline to tap aquifers beneath cattle-raising valleys northeast of the city, according to Bloomberg and it has even looked into diverting floodwaters from the Mississippi River westward. Such plans incite people from the Great Lakes region to quiver over the prospect that their precious water may be tapped for a pipeline to the West.

According to Mark Reisner in Cadillac Desert, this region initially watered itself through diverted rivers and irrigation ditches. The 1930s saw the construction of huge water projects like the Hoover Dam that were largely financed with federal tax revenues. In the 1960s, long-distance pipelines were first conceived by Western-born federal officials, including those donning the environmental mantle.

Where all of this will end up is unknown but the future does not look very promising especially as a variety of adverse environmental forces are now coming together. However, the American people as a whole are unresponsive, perhaps because they are unaware of the dangers while many Westerners are clearly in denial of the problems. Perhaps a few suggestions will help.

* We must come to grips with the fact that most of the United States west of the Mississippi River is arid or semi-arid and that attempting to “green it” with water projects is ultimately a losing battle with serious and expensive consequences on the entire country.

* We must learn to organize our communities around regional systems like water and climate rather than only geographical political units in order to respond to regional problems.

* Sustainability must be everybody's concern. Making a profit through cheap water resources, for example, must now take a back seat to being able to live well on our planet.

* Schools and colleges must promote sustainability programs both in practice and theory. The young people in these institutions are the ones who will have to live in the resource-depleted twenty-first century.

* The U.S. Congress must get on board with effective and deliberate water and climate change legislation.

During the June commencement exercises at my college, one student wore a sign: “We didn't start the fire.” I later learned that the sign referred to the 1989 Billy Joel song of the same name. The sign also alluded to the environmental problems the next generation will face.

Baby Boomers have benefited the most from twentieth century industrial society, where unlimited supplies of fresh water (and other resources) were taken for granted. Hoping for technology to fix the depletion of water is no longer a strategy. The water is running out!

The Oak Ridge Conundrum on War and Peace

2009-08-06T01:24:00.002-04:00

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, “the city that made the atom bomb,” clearly illustrates the difficult conundrum people must face when their government decides to build a stockpile of highly lethal nuclear weapons.

The origins of this conundrum are steeped with justifications like (a) “the bomb” ended the World War II and saved American lives; (b) the weapons protect us from our enemies and have prevented World War III; and (c) the research and manufacture of nuclear products preserve jobs, homes, and the local economy.

From its beginning in 1942 Oak Ridge was an unsettling place. Located in the lush and beautiful Clinch River Valley of eastern Tennessee, it “mushroomed” into a government “reservation” of 75,000 people living and working in the middle of nowhere so research and production of the atomic bomb could be hidden from the enemy fascists of Germany. Unfortunately, the farmers and their families who lived there were dispossessed of their property and told to clear out in 10 days.

Oak Ridge finally produced the plutonium for the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” bombs dropped on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9) killing 140,000 and 80,000 respectively. Since then, tens of thousands more Japanese have died from leukemia and various cancers attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs. Nevertheless, when Japan surrendered on August 15, Oak Ridgers were jubilant because they were told that their work made a direct contribution toward ending the war.

Life in the “Secret City” wasn’t easy for the Oak Ridgers, who were mostly civilians literally living behind a security fence under the authority of the Army. Residents were expected to report any suspicious behavior of their neighbors and fellow workers. Employees had to sign a pledge not to divulge any secrets about their work, which was so broken down into smaller parts that only the top directors of the Manhattan project knew that the atom bomb was actually being built!

Oak Ridge was conceived of as a temporary city with a single purpose and no one expected it would continue after the war. Housing was made of cheap, pre-fabricated materials. Facilities and amenities were meager and mud was everywhere.

Soon after the war when the Oak Ridge mission was accomplished, some people left the “Secret City” relieved to get out. Many people, however, wanted to stay because they believed that the knowledge discovered there was too valuable not to be further developed. Others stayed because they just wanted to keep their jobs. Then, Eugene Wigner, one of the legendary refugee scientists from Europe who provided the theoretical and practical knowledge that fueled the Manhattan project, created a new, peacetime purpose for nuclear research. As a result, the city was saved and this new purpose came in the form of radioactive isotopes that are used extensively in medicine (especially for thyroid disease and cancer therapy), agriculture, powering spacecrafts, smoke detectors, DNA analysis, diagnostic imaging and other advanced scientific applications. Now, the facilities behind the fence are known as the world-famous and highly-respected Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

Oak Ridge, today, is a thriving multicultural community of 27,000. It has a rich and proud history, good schools and wonderful cultural and environmental amenities that make the city an attractive place to live. ORNL and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville (25 miles away) help populate the city with well-traveled, well-read, well-educated, well-informed people who are very smart and like living in Oak Ridge. But even this is a conundrum when it comes to peacemaking activities.

Residents have been involved in various peace causes over the years. For example, the city entered into a sister-city relationship with Naka-shi, Ibaraki-ken, Japan, on October 29, 1990. It also hosts the Ulster Project where Catholic and Protestant teenagers from Northern Ireland “build a peaceful parity of esteem between each other by building tolerance, trust, and ongoing positive relationships.”

So far, 11 greenways comprise 1,566 acres of sanctuary for wildlife and native plants as well as trails and other opportunities for residents to enjoy nature in unspoiled settings. Walking tours and excursion trains take people through the area’s history.

The American Museum of Science and Energy provides exhibits on the peaceful uses of atomic energy and serves as a “center for exploration dedicated to personalizing science and technology.” However, while museums generally help visitors to remember and reflect on the past in order to shape the future, this one has a sense of ironic tragedy with its shiny war exhibits like a replica of “Little Boy” and a Mark 28, the oldest thermonuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal. I found these exhibits difficult to admire. In fact, they were downright frightening—second only to the elderly gentleman at the museum’s info desk. He had worked on “the bomb” and now he was breathing from an oxygen machine and living with cancer, presumably due to his exposure to radiation.

Being a peace activist in Oak Ridge creates a confrontation with the legacy of the “Secret City,” where residents resist engaging in talk or activities that might affect the ORNL’s nuclear weapons research or production. They risk losing their jobs, government contracts, lifestyles or valued relationships in this tight-knit community and company town. Now that is a terrible conundrum to live with.

Nevertheless, the Oak Ridge Peacemaking Alliance (ORPAX), begun in 1982, joined other Americans in their concern about the nuclear arms race. ORPAX joined a group of “outsiders” (another legacy of Oak Ridge living where you were either “inside” or “outside” the security fence) to commemorate Hiroshima Day in 1983. Even so, it was careful to stipulate that the day would be a memorial to those who died and not a condemnation of Oak Ridge or of the Y-12 plant that made “the bomb.” These demands were not realized.

Since 1988, the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) has also demonstrated against nuclear weapons at the gates of the Y-12 plant in its Stop the Bombs campaign. It, too, holds a Hiroshima Day and since 1998 members have made over 500 presentations on WMD and militarism and invited thousands of people to Oak Ridge to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. Hundreds of OREPA members have also been arrested for acts of civil disobedience on this issue.

Peace activists report that their Hiroshima observances have been mocked. Newspaper editorials have issued scathing commentaries against their anti-war activities. During the 1990s, obstructionists tried to scuttle proposals for an International Friendship Bell whose aim was to unite the people of Oak Ridge and Japan in friendship and remembrance over the terrible death and destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki so that it would never happen again. But this issue was eventually resolved and the bell stands tall in A.K. Bissell Park and is promoted as a must-see site on the Visitors and Convention Bureau city map.

When the United States threatened war against Iraq in 2002, Oak Ridge peace activists demonstrated against it—and were met with counter-protests across the street by people who dismissed the activists as “way overboard.” Nevertheless, some activists are undeterred. One elderly woman regularly writes letters to the editor in the local newspaper about her opposition to the war despite bloggers’ labeling her a “radical activist.”

Another woman wrote a booklet for high school students on the practical realities of enlisting in the military in order to balance the influence of military recruiters. She informed parents that the military has access to students’ records and then lobbied the school board to give parents the option of having their child receive information on enlistment.

And one more conundrum: a lot of the local residents appreciated the activists’ peacemaking efforts even though they don’t stand with them.

Today, members of ORPAX conduct their demonstrations “in very harmless ways.” said one middle-aged member.

“We’re not trying to get coverage in the newspaper. And when we go out to ring the International Friendship Bell on Sundays [in honor of the fallen Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan], we do it more for ourselves in a private way. If we were public about it, we’d put ourselves at risk.”

Oak Ridgers understand what it means to be a part of a place that has a great effect on the world—in both war and peace. And in some ways, Oak Ridge still remains a “secret city”—for those who thirst for peace.

However, it is important to recognize that the Oak Ridge conundrum of war and peace reflects the conundrum of our entire nation. Oak Ridge may be the place where WMD were and are constructed, but all Americans share a responsibility for what we do with these weapons. For my money, especially on this day of remembrance in Hiroshima, they should all be banned and disassembled.

Happy Birthday America: How Exceptional Are You?

2009-07-06T14:50:00.004-04:00

Today, as we celebrate the birth of our nation as the world's beacon of freedom and democracy, we might also ponder the insights from a book by Godfrey Hodgson, The Myth of American Exceptionalism. Exceptionalism is an especially pertinent topic for us during this insecure period of empire, war and economic decline.

Hodgson grew up in Great Britain and became a great admirer of Americans because of what we did during World War II. He studied in Philadelphia and served as a correspondent for the London Observer in Washington, D.C. He covered the Civil Rights Movement and made films about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ronald Reagan. He taught at Harvard and Berkeley and has visited all but two states. He prides himself in spending most of his life in trying to understand the history and politics of the United States and he provides an interesting "outsider's" viewpoint.

American exceptionalism, says Hodgson, is rooted in religion where colonialists saw themselves as "a chosen people" destined to "fulfill a unique historical destiny." This ideology surfaces from time to time, especially when the nation is in crisis. Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush all used it because it resonates well with the public and reasserts our identity. President Obama is now using it by "appealing to our better natures," as Lincoln would call it.

Our schools have trained us well in exceptionalism, he says, however, what they often miss is the context of international historic processes at work. For example, the American Revolution borrowed its ideas about liberty and freedom from Europeans who had been developing them since the seventeenth century British Revolution and the eighteenth century Enlightenment.

European political rivalries and struggles also influenced America's development because they brought dispossessed immigrants to our shores. We were exceptional in that we offered the immigrants land they couldn't get in Europe. However, these lands became available through our expulsion of the indigenous tribes who once lived on them. In this way we were not exceptional to the Europeans who built their colonial empires in the same way.

Hodgson continues that westward movement, made possible mostly by the transcontinental railroads, was financed by Europeans who also invested in our manufacturing, provided us with intellectual property, and supplied us with cheap European labor-through immigration.

The twentieth century reinforced America's exceptionalist belief when we acted as "an international knight errant, riding to the rescue of the victims of oppression and injustice." Much of this ideology came from Wilson but FDR tapped it, too, and it inspired us to win two world wars. A good thing, says Hodgson.

The post-war 1950s began a new era of American exceptionalist thought and brought more good. Our victory in war bred a new prosperity, wider participation in politics, greater rights for women and minorities, belief in educational opportunity, mobility in geography and economics and concern for the welfare of others. But it also produced a dark side where we feared vulnerability with the Soviet Union. However, our Cold War textbooks taught us a "new militant sense of exceptionalism" with a re-worked religious belief that "the United States had been entrusted by God with a mission of bringing light to a darling world."

This story continues into the mid-1970s until something happens to make America seem less exceptional, he says. International institutions the United States had created, like the United Nations, became unpopular with many Americans. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 fomented a hubris where we seemed to reject "long-cherished principles."

For example, America switched from being exceedingly liberal (the legacy of FDR) to being exceedingly conservative (the legacy of Reagan), which made us drastically exceptional from the rest of the world in terms of:

* imprisoning greater numbers of people
* providing less access to health care
* sustaining a growing inequality in distribution of income and wealth
* disconnecting the campaign from the deeds done in politics
* rejecting assumptions about global warming, international law and respect for international organizations
* supporting a standing army of invincible force and superiority.

The rate of child poverty is 21.9 percent, the highest among the 17 OECD countries, makes the United States exceptional, says Hodgson, in that we are unwilling "to pay to take children out of poverty."

Additionally, our political system has become more focused on funding and winning elections than on encouraging voter participation. Politicians seek money from business and lobbyists to finance the cost of TV advertising, which is aimed at wealthier people who do vote their best interests, he says. It's no wonder unions, citizens groups, consumers and minorities have been left out!

Even the Constitution has been abused in part "as a result of the unrestrained ferocity of political conflict" between the polarized conservatives and liberals-who differ very little except in their party affiliations.

A spiking stock market in the 1990s created a "mood of economic triumphalism and a belief in a ‘New Economy' that broke all the rules," says Hodgson. Americans changed from being an people of idealism and generosity to a people who were "harder, more hubristic." Most Americans truly believed that everyone was experiencing a rise in living standards-that is until the bubble burst in 2000 and again in the fall of 2008. Only then did it become obvious that the country had in fact become a debtor nation where only the very rich profited.

Since 1989 America has evinced a new attitude as "the lone superpower" with its 700+ military bases and a supremacy of force. Consequently, Americans were the last ones to believe that anyone could challenge them, says Hodgson, until 19 hijackers armed with box cutters poked through our vulnerability.

And that is yet another thing. Americans perceive 9/11 as an instance where we were exceptionally hated and then forget that terrorist attacks were carried out in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Tanzania, Bali, Madrid, Casablanca, Istanbul and London.

Hodgson concludes that the United States as it is today is not exceptionally bad but that it is no longer exceptional. Instead, America is just "one great, but imperfect, country among many others."

Hodgson has taken great pains not to minimize America's achievements but rather to offer analysis about how our exceptionalism has influenced false perceptions of ourselves and a skewing of some of our policies.

Actually, this book may serve as a sounding board for our national consciousness during this time of crisis. Then, what we do as a nation is really up to us. And that will be the measure of our exceptionalism.

This article was posted on CommonDreams.org on Sunday, July 5, 2009.

How to Boil a Frog

2009-06-30T09:23:00.003-04:00

Want to be a real hero?

Save the planet.

Don’t know how?

Start by viewing the new eco-comedy, How to Boil a Frog.

The film tells the story of Jon Cooksey, an ordinary man on a mission, who decided two years ago that he had to do something personally to make sure his 12-year-old daughter would have a future, given all the bad news on global warming.

As he began this quest he was especially keen on waking people up to the disinformation campaign against global warming. However, after interviewing top experts in the field, he discovered a much bigger picture: the world is in “overshoot” where peak oil, global warming, overpopulation, diminishing natural resources, and a system where “the privileged few rule” come together to a point that no one problem can be addressed without tackling all of them.

While too many films (and books and speeches) stop right there with the problems, Cooksey goes beyond that to offer solutions with the promise that acting on global warming can not only make our lives better but it can make a difference for people throughout our world. Here are his five suggestions:

* Don’t buy Exxon products (a foremost contributor to global warming and big-time lobbyist against change).
* Reduce or eliminate your consumption of beef. (Cows contribute to global warming more than any other animal except humans.)
* Limit families to one child per couple.
* Discover ways to transition off the energy-chugging treadmill that consumes time, money and happiness.
* Be a “giant killer” by organizing citizens to fight for sustainability in their communities and exposing corporations and projects that pollute. (Cooksey is especially fond of You-Tube for gaining the attention of both the giants and the “little people.”)

How to Boil a Frog is especially useful for people struggling with paralyzing guilt, despair and/or ignorance over the state of the environment. Here Cooksey puts it bluntly: “If you believe you can make a difference, you can; if you don’t believe you can’t make a difference, you can’t.” Of course, he hopes he can convince you to act.

One interesting effect of deciding to act is that citizens come together in cooperative ways to fight for their communities—and the can make a lot of friends, just as Cooksey did. This is something, he says, that we have gotten away from in our society where competition and the acquisition of private property and goods are more valued than our relationships with each other.

Cooksey’s message is clear in point and snarky in tone and its snappy pace is filled with many mind-boggling facts and challenges. The film will appeal to both adults and children alike as it takes a funny and irreverent look at our consumer culture, unsustainable lifestyles and general attitudes that have allowed us to wage an unprecedented war against Nature.

Finally, what is most compelling—and refreshing—about the film is to see a man who has known privilege and success illustrate to viewers how he uses his skills and talents as a TV writer/producer to communicate his concerns about the environment. Through his own example, he taps the heroic vein in all of us to do the same in our own way so that we, too, will act with purpose and hope in the future for the sake of all our children.

How to Boil a Frog is an interactive work in progress. The website provides a trailer, background information on the issues and several links about what other communities are doing for sustainability. A virtual bake sale is also being held to raise funds to finish the film and distribute it.

This article appeared in Energy Bulletin on Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Who Wants to Be George W. Bush?

2009-05-29T14:37:00.002-04:00

BENTON HARBOR/ST. JOSEPH, Michigan – Private citizen George W. Bush poked his head out from his quiet, exclusive Dallas neighborhood last night to give his first major speech since leaving office. Ironically, the place he picked is near one of the nation’s poorest, most racially divided cities. It also happens to be in one of the reddest, most conservative congressional districts.

The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan attracted 2,500 people who greeted the former president with great warmth and excitement. It was obvious that they must be the 30 percent of Americans who have remained loyal to Bush. Perhaps this is the way he now can attract a friendly crowd, a much different approach from his 2004 campaign rallies where dissenters were barred from attending.

However, it was evident that one of the lowest-rated presidents of all time is not someone office holders want to be around these days. Republican Representative “Freddie-boy” Upton, Bush’s nickname for him, was not there nor were other local political officials who are customarily introduced at such affairs.

Nevertheless, Bush was in his best form and he didn’t hold back his folksy informality. He looked relaxed and comfortable as he told a few tales of his presidency—without notes. The whole event felt much like neighbors gathering around the pickle barrel in a country store. And that’s his magic. He ingratiated the audience with his wit, charm and affability. Even his skeptics might be persuaded to accept his world view—until they recall the past eight years of Hell he put this country through.

Bush gave a self-effacing performance, especially when it came to pointing out his mistakes in following the evening’s format, but not the mistakes of his presidency. It appears that he truly believes he didn’t make any and that he exercised responsible leadership in a time of great trial.

For example, he told the audience that his guide for decision-making included five principles. They read like a cross between the Declaration of Independence, Grover Norquist and an MBA leadership text:
· Freedom is universal.
· The people can spend their money better than the government can.
· The organizational structure must allow information to get to the decision-
maker.
· Timeliness is important.
· A leader has to be willing to make tough calls, stand by them and insist
that they be carried out.

Choosing a vice presidential candidate was Bush’s first big decision, he said, and he looked for someone who could advance his own credibility. Cheney was a “thoughtful guy” who would “do a good job.” Besides, Cheney wasn’t interested in running for president so he wouldn’t distance himself from the president if something went wrong.

Such ironic comment was typical throughout the speech and Bush and the audience seemed quite oblivious to it.

In another instance, a woman asked what impact his strong religious beliefs had on his presidency. He replied that “religion and politics are a dangerous mix” and that he “made religion a personal matter” by trying to practice Jesus’ commandment to ‘love thy neighbor.’

“Muslim mothers want their children to grow up in peace,” said Bush. “There’s more commonality [between us and them] than you think.” And he seemed concerned that Americans had somehow taken to negatively stereotyping Muslims in the Middle East.

Such comments made it hard to believe that Bush’s perspective and reality could be one and the same thing and if this is how his book goes, he may risk losing sales.

The former president seems to have forgotten how quickly he called the 9/11 hijackers “evil doers” (code for the Religious Right) and how he later attacked Saddam, whom he now identifies as “a dangerous man who sponsored terrorism.” He also unfairly drew lines between Americans: those who were with him and those against him. Some fundamentalist Christians were so whipped up by his apocalyptic rhetoric that they called protesters against the war in Iraq traitors!

Bush still holds fast to the idea that we are waging an ideological struggle with “a group of people who murdered the innocent to spread an ideology of hate.” These enemies are similar to the fascists and communists in days gone by, only they do not represent nation-states and they plot and plan against us just the same.

His reaction to the September 11 attacks was based on how he viewed it, which author Reza Aslan calls a “cosmic war” view in his new book on the subject. A cosmic war is a religious war not between armies or nations but rather between the forces of good and evil where God is believed to be on one side against the other. How do you win a cosmic war? By refusing to fight one, Aslan answers.

Bush, however, indulged himself and the nation in this fight. He described his actions with a paternalistic tone by telling the audience of his vow “to take whatever steps that were necessary to protect you” and to do whatever it took to get information so that decisions could be made. He was not as brash as Dick Cheney usually is with the protection-of-America argument, but the message was the same.

Then Bush addressed and justified the torture memos without naming them.

“The first thing you do is ask, what's legal?” he said regarding the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March 2003. “What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, ‘I've done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.’ I can tell you that the information we got saved lives.”

The declining economy was on everyone’s mind and Bush explained that his advisers told him to either make a move (institute the Troubled Asset Relief Program), or preside over a depression worse than the Great Depression.

Wall Street bankers, whom he benevolently characterized as “thoroughbreds” chasing after money, were responsible for the economic downturn but that the “lack of responsible regulation” was the major culprit. In trying to fix the situation, he also blamed Congress for its inaction and globalization for the lack of maneuverability.

“I’m a big free trader,” he said, “but the markets obviously need restraint and oversight.” If we export our products, all will be well with our economy and poverty can be eradicated, too, he said.

“We’ll recover. We’ve always recovered,” he said to great cheers from the crowd. “Capitalism works and it will work again.”

As usual, Bush relied on his words and force of personality to convince people of his best hopes.
The former president also received a standing ovation when asked what he wanted his legacy to be.
“Well, I hope it is this: The man showed up with a set of principles, and he was unwilling to sacrifice his soul for the sake of popularity.”
Little did Americans realize after the 2000 election that this administration would attack American civil liberties and regard the Constitution as just a piece of paper!
Of course, September 11 pervaded his speech. Only this time he used it less to strike fear in his listeners but more to solicit pity for himself.

“You have to convey a sense of calm,” he said. “If you’re president of the United States, if you overreact, you send shock waves throughout society.”

Security at the event was surprisingly loose. There were no metal detectors or purse searches. Police and Secret Service were present, of course, but they did not occupy the area as though it were a fortress.

The former president spoke for about 30 minutes and then took spontaneous questions for nearly an hour. This was a diversion from the plan where questions were solicited before the event.

Officials for the event refused to say how much Bush received for the speech but the eight protesters who showed up to demonstrate outside the building claimed it was $150,000 too much.

So how will the country ultimately judge George W. Bush? Seeing him in action clearly illustrates that he is a tragic figure not because he presided over the worst attack on the United States in history but rather that he thought he could be a competent president.

“It was my honor [to serve as president]” he said. “I love America and I wanted to serve in any capacity.” Such statements belie his actions, starting with when he went AWOL from the Texas National Guard.

Bush also illustrated that he is not aware of whom he is: a man who took political advantage of a disaster and then ruined his own presidency. He will forever remain responsible for our fallen and wounded; the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani dead, wounded, and homeless; our shrinking treasury; and our reputation in the world.

Bush may have charmed his supporters in the room last night but it is doubtful he will have the same effect on most people. And after witnessing this first major speech, it is obvious that it will be difficult for him to be George W. Bush probably for the rest of his life.

Climax man seeks common bonds amid societal conflicts

2009-05-17T23:26:00.003-04:00

Many people want to change the world. Steve Olweean of Climax is doing it.

Olweean helps people to focus on their common bonds rather than their differences, particularly people who have been traumatized by war or violence.

“Outsiders provide food, clothing and shelter after the war, but they ignore the trauma that goes with war,” said the psychotherapist and founding director of the Common Bond Institute (CBI).

As head of the institute, Olweean provides training programs to local health professionals and relief workers around the world who then help traumatized victims in their regions. So far, his work has taken him to Russia, the Balkans, Middle East, Caucuses, Caribbean and Basque country in Spain.

To help people cope with the traumas of war, Olweean developed something called the Catastrophic Trauma Recovery training model. It operates on the premise that “there is no bad society” and that when violence occurs, it is regarded as something that has gone awry to make the community extremely inhumane.

In 1998, Olweean joined with the Harmony Institute of St. Petersburg to organize an intensive CTR-training conference for therapists to address war’s inhumane behaviors and seek healing.

Catastrophic Trauma Recovery training has been used in Bosnia and with mental-health groups in Gaza. Olweean also helped establish a children's trauma-treatment center in Nablus on Israel’s West Bank.

Olweean got his start as an activist in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s.

Those efforts were spiritually motivating for him, he said, and they increased in importance during the 1980s when the tensions of the Cold War threatened world peace and security.

His sensitivity to social justice grew out of his childhood where his parents and grandparents encouraged him to become familiar with, experience and appreciate many different religions. As a Muslim, he discovered that people of various faiths were seeking goodness, compassion, wisdom and peace.

He first came to the Kalamazoo area in the 1970s for graduate study in psychology at Western Michigan University. Then he worked for the Douglass Community Association as a community advocate and mental-heath worker. Although he never intended to stay in the area, he liked it and found that he could be involved in global work through the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) and its International Soviet-American Professional Exchange.

The Exchange was intended “to reach commonalities and to introduce humanistic psychology to our Soviet counterparts,” said Olweean.

Humanistic psychology, according to the AHP website (www.ahpweb.org), seeks to “enhance the quality of human experience and to advance the evolution of human consciousness” through the principles of integrity, authenticity, compassion and skill in listening, and respect for all people.

“What we discovered was that we were bridging stereotypes and forming strong bonds,” said Olweean who coordinated several exchanges until he decided to devote himself full-time to the Common Bond Institute in 1992. He then worked with his Russian colleagues to create the Annual International Conference on Conflict Resolution (ICR) in 1993.

“The ICR grew on its own from a half-day annual exchange to a six-day conference and it has continued over the past 16 years with therapists from 65 countries participating,” said Olweean.

In 2006 the ICR began its annual “Engaging the Other” conference in San Francisco, which focused on confronting religious, racial, ethnic, political and national conflicts.

“If we are separated from people, we only go on what we don't know about them,” said Olweean. “This is where prejudice, threat, and discomfort arises. So we get people together and create an inclusiveness where there is mutual honoring of each other. New learning takes place as people realize how they lock themselves into certain ideas.”

Olweean said that the distinction between ourselves and “the Other” occurs from birth when we identify who we are in comparison to everyone else. People who are closest to us are the first examples of who we are not.

This natural psychological process is the means by which we create our internal compass, he said. But conflicts occur when we adopt a belief system where our encounters with “the Other” are shrouded in fear and anxiety.

One key element in this training is that participants learn to focus on their commonalities more than their differences, said Olweean.

They also learn how societies pass on a cultural heritage that typically distinguishes “the Other” by harboring memories of their victimization or victory in war. These memories carry past grudges and tragedies rather than moving people toward a new future.

People who have gone through war and violence have memories that can traumatize them psychologically and emotionally over many generations, which was the case in the Balkans during the 1990s. The Serbs were demonized as perpetrators of the war although they felt they were victims of the Bosnians centuries before.

This is called “inter-generational trauma,” said Olweean. Such trauma is so strong that some Jews have shown signs of being traumatized by the Holocaust even though they were born after World War II.

Recently, Olweean held the inaugural Conference on Religion, Conflict and Peace at southeastern Michigann’s Oakland University upon the invitation of Imam Achmat Salie, founder and director of the Islamic Studies Program there.

“The significance of this conference was that we were openly debating the issue of religion in a public university,” said Salie. “Private universities are doing a good job with such discussions but public universities hesitate because they feel bound by separation of church and state.”

Penny Zago, one of the conference speakers, first participated in a CBI conference in St. Petersburg in 1997. The retired special education teacher trainer and consultant to the Michigan Department of Education currently volunteers for the Shalom Center for Justice and Peace at the United Methodist Church in Lansing.

“Steve always has outstanding presenters who have a great knowledge and passion for what they do. I always come back with a lot of ideas to gnaw on,” said Zago. “His conferences are very interactive and always focused on building relationships among participants.”

For Olweean, it’s all about giving peace a chance.

This article appeared in the Kalamazoo Gazette on May 9, 2009.

Organizing for Peace and Social Justice

2009-04-16T20:23:00.003-04:00

“There's nothing magical about organizing people for peace and social justice,” said 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams, but it's a lot of work because it requires logic, planning, follow up, follow through and the constant search for allies.

This is what Williams did in 1992 when she headed the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). Five years later she and a team of activists persuaded 121 nations to ban the use of landmines, weapons, which at the time were considered legal in over 80 countries.

Williams is one of several Nobel Peace laureates working with PeaceJam (www.peacejam.org) to help create a new generation of young leaders committed to peace through positive change in themselves, their communities and the world.

Organizing first requires that you figure out whom you can get to build a coalition to work on an issue, she said. Then you find existing laws or treaties and figure out how they can be used to advance your issue. Finally, you find allies in government who share your view and will push through legislation.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) turned out to be her government contact, which was a natural since she, too, was a native Vermonter. He'd seen victims of landmines in the late 1980s and had started the Leahy War Victims Relief Fund in 1989, which is administered by USAID for civilians disabled by civil strife, war and landmines. He also sponsored legislation—the first in the world—to lead a moratorium on the exportation of landmines.

“We got a big boost for banning landmines right at the starting gate,” said Williams. “It energized Europe [who was also involved in these exportation practices] and created a competition among nations to outdo each other.” For example, France upped the ante on the United States and proposed a three-year moratorium. After that, the movement just gained momentum.

Unfortunately, the United States, Russia and China did not sign the treaty, but that has not stopped Williams from continuing her effort to rid the world of violence.

“You must have an outline for a plan of action for the next six to twelve months,” she said. “Most people don't think through strategy but instead adopt yours, if you have one.

The key to the ICBL's success on banning landmines was in forming close partnerships with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), governments, the (ICRC) and United Nations agencies, according to the organization's website (www.icbl.org). In order to obtain these partnerships, the ICBL managed the following activities:

· Provide expertise and credible documentation
· Articulate goals and messages clearly and simply
· Maintain a flexible but unified coalition structure that is inclusive and diverse
· Recognize that most of the work is done by a few
· Communicate key developments with all concerned
· Organize people to move an issue forward
· Formulate plans with achievable deadlines and goals to build momentum and excitement

Prior to her starting ICBL, Williams worked for eleven years to build public awareness about U.S. Policy toward Central America. From 1986 to 1992, she developed and directed humanitarian relief projects as the deputy director of the Los Angeles-based Medical Aid for El Salvador. From 1984 to 1986 she was co-coordinator of the Nicaragua-Honduras Education Project, leading fact-finding delegations to the region. Previously, she taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in Mexico, the United Kingdom and Washington, D.C.

Teaching the young about nonviolence is essential, said Williams, who contends that peace is about talking through differences and finding compromises. It takes schools and families to change things and end the continuum of violence that pervades a culture that “glorifies screeching.”

One example of effective education, organization and action Williams cited was a fourth grade teacher who taught a unit about banning landmines. The students then decided to go to the University of West Virginia near their home to teach the college students there about the dangers of landmines. Recently, the students had a tenth anniversary to celebrate their work.

“Those are the ones who blow me away,” said Williams.

High School Students Flock to PeaceJam Conference

2009-04-07T06:02:00.008-04:00

There's no doubt about it: Many of today's youths are highly motivated and very excited about engaging themselves in community-service projects.

What's different about PeaceJam youths, however, is that they are focused on projects that change the world to make it a more peaceful and nonviolent place.

The weekend of March 27, 200 high school students from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio converged on the Bernhard Center ballrooms at Western Michigan University to celebrate their yearlong study of peacemaking at the annual Great Lakes PeaceJam conference. They were treated to an appearance of 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams.

Williams won the Peace Prize for her work in heading up the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (www.icbl.org) in 1992. Five years later she and a team of activists persuaded 121 nations to sign a treaty usually called ``the Ottawa Convention'' to ban the use, stockpiling, production and sale of landmines, which at the time was considered a legal weapon for military arsenals.

Although the United States, Russia and China did not sign the treaty, Williams has not stopped her effort to rid the world of violence. She is one of several Nobel Peace laureates who are working with PeaceJam to help create a new generation of young leaders committed to peace through positive change in themselves, their communities and the world.

This year's laureate was a passionate advocate for peace whom teens widely admired and appreciated for both her style and her message.

``She's a firecracker,'' said Quinn Stifler, an eleventh-grader from Portage Northern High School who got the chance to interview Williams for her school newspaper, The Northern Light. ``I like her great energy and her easy way to have a discussion. She's very personable.''

Lili Marchak, the eleventh grade managing editor for the Portage Northern newspaper, noted that not many high school journalists get such an opportunity to talk to a worldwide figure.

``(Williams) is someone who's really made a difference,'' Marchak said. ``In this story I want to inspire students to do the same.''

Williams' message focused on substituting national security policies and initiatives with human security policies and initiatives. She contended that the world can no longer sustain military solutions when people are without basic human needs, such as food, water or shelter, or when they lack dignity, employment, health care, education and safety against various forms of violence.

``We can only be secure when justice and the sharing of resources in the world are present,'' Williams said to an audience of nearly 400 at the March 27 public event that preceded the students' weekend conference.

``Human security, not national security, will bring security to everyone in the world.''

PeaceJam has enlisted the help of the Nobel laureates in order to inspire students and serve as models.

``She wasn't afraid of anything and was willing to do anything to get her message across,'' said Eileen Zimmerman, a 12th-grader from Waverly High School in Lansing.

Tenth-grader Ryan Walling, of Shaker Heights, Ohio, found Williams not to be the stereotypical laureate he expected.

``It's kind of boring to hear about being nice and peaceful and that war is terrible,'' he said. ``(Williams) is more realistic. She understands that people get angry sometimes and want to punch out someone. However, peace is about overcoming such emotions.''

A big part of the PeaceJam conference is students' involvement in peace projects during the afternoon session. On Saturday, students chose from among several activities like clearing the brush at a Habitat for Humanity house, demonstrating for peace with the Kalamazoo Nonviolent Opponents of War, helping youngsters read at the Lincoln School YMCA, making blankets for the YWCA domestic violence shelter.

``We're here to make the world believe that anything is possible and that there's a solution to every question,'' said Kimyahtta Morris, a twelfth-grader from Southfield Academy in Battle Creek. She participated in the peace demonstration in front of the Federal Building on Michigan Avenue.

``It gets you thinking about different issues in the world and how to [promote peace] locally,'' said Zimmerman, who volunteered for the Habitat for Humanity project. ``It's such an easy thing to do to volunteer your time to help people in need.''

On Sunday, students learned how to derive inner peace through lessons in yoga, tai chi, chi kung, poetry, healthy food, conflict resolution, dialogue and becoming ``green fashionistas'' with a recession budget.

Youth volunteer for PeaceJam in an after-school club setting starting in the fall. They study a particular Nobel laureate and the peace issue that she or he pursued.

``PeaceJam is truly a path to enabling youth to make positive social change,'' Nott said. They meet students from other states and ``learn (peacemaking) is happening all over the country.

This article appeared in the City Life section of the Kalamazoo Gazette on Saturday, April 4, 2009.

It's Human Security, Stupid, Not National Security

2009-03-30T16:51:00.001-04:00

She is emotional, strong-willed and determined. She is also passionate and not averse to yelling, swearing or pounding on the podium to make a point. And when it comes to national security, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams is dead set against using our country's power and resources to kill or maim other people. Instead, she promotes “human security” as a way of forging world peace.

“We can only be secure when justice and the sharing of resources in the world are present,” she said to an audience of nearly 400 at the annual Great Lakes PeaceJam held last weekend at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. “Human security, not national security will bring security to everyone in the world.”

PeaceJam's (www.peacejam.org) mission is to work with Nobel Peace Laureates to help create a new generation of young leaders committed to peace through positive change in themselves, their communities and the world.

Williams won the Peace Prize for her work in starting and heading up the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (www.icbl.org) in 1992. Five years later she and her team of activists persuaded 121 nations to ban the use of landmines, which at the time was considered a conventional practice in supplying over 80 countries' military arsenals. Unfortunately, the United States, Russia and China did not sign the treaty. But that has not stopped Williams from continuing her effort to rid the world of violence.

In fact, she has stepped up her campaign for human security by participating in PeaceJam's “Global Call to Action.” The program involves several Nobel Peace Laureates who work with and inspire the youth of the world to be involved in a decade-long quest to effect change by addressing the following needs:
· Providing equal access to water and other natural resources
· Ending racism and hate
· Halting the spread of global disease
· Eliminating extreme poverty
· Fighting for social justice and human rights
· Promoting rights for women and children and their roles as leaders
· Restoring the earth's environment
· Controlling the proliferation of weapons
· Breaking the cycle of violence
Many governmental leaders believe that they need a mighty military machine to make their people safe and secure, said Williams. Investing in human security, however, means that when we work to stop global warming; provide people with decent housing, education and health care; and deal with conflict through compromise instead of violence, then we are creating a more secure world.

To illustrate the hapless pursuit of national security, Williams noted that on September 10, 2001, the United States had the strongest military presence the world had ever seen. On September 11, after Americans “freaked out” over four hijacked airplanes, $44 billion was allocated to the Pentagon “to make our country more secure.”

Beefing up the military, as important as it is for the defense of our nation is not the path to increased security, said Williams.

“We talk about U.S. interests being advanced by the military,” said Williams, who received a master's degree from the prestigious School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, which trains American diplomats, policymakers, businesspeople and organizational leaders. Her experience of the SAIS curriculum was that its emphasis on economics left out the human element.

“The military is supposed to be our last resort when diplomacy has been lost,” said Williams.

“We make all sorts of calculations and analyses of our military actions but forget to analyze the impact we make on the people we bomb.

In fact, Williams hated her time at SAIS and they hated her, she said—until she received the Nobel Peace Prize. Paul Wolfowitz, who was dean at the time, sent
her a letter inviting her to receive recognition for the most achieved alum award.

“I didn't answer it and threw the letter away,” she said with disgust.
However, Williams takes pains to distinguish between the policymakers and the soldiers who are sent to do battle.

“I have nothing against soldiers who die for our country, but rather for those who send them there to die.”

Of late, she is very concerned about President Obama's decision to step up the war in
Afghanistan and send drones to bomb Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan.

“Won't the people who are bombed there try to send some drones over here?” she asked.
Williams promotes peace activism but warned her audience that such work is considered as kumbya, guitars, doves and rainbows.

“They call us peaceniks and tree-hugging liberals. That means that we are little wimps who don't understand what makes peace in the world. It implies that we can't deal with the complexities of national security like the big-time policymakers do.”

Attaining peace in the world today, she said, requires a different mindset and a new way of thinking that advocates justice and equality and strives to meet basic human needs.

There is something wrong when 20 percent of the world's population controls 80 percent of the planet's resources, she said. There is something wrong when 1.5
billion people are without clean drinking water. There is something wrong when a handful of billionaires have more wealth than sub-Saharan Africa. That's why people strap on a bomb and blow it up.

“We need to think about security in terms of human beings, not the state,” said Williams. “We'll still have conflict, but not at the scale we have now.”

Williams also urged her audience to commit themselves to a brand of peace activism that is bigger than just being against war. Instead they should be focused on making sure that people's basic needs are met, they are treated with dignity, they have a right to choose their own forms of government, and that conflicts are resolved without violence.

She also advised that activists can get more done if they join together with activists of
different causes and “realize that we're all part of the same thing” when we contribute to human security and not national security where we strive to have “the biggest, most muscular missiles and defense in the world.”

PeaceJam participants donned gray t-shirts with Williams' advice printed on their backs: “Emotion without action is irrelevant.”

“Emotion is the first step,” said Williams. “But if it's not channeled positively, it
is a waste.”

Our National Report Card on War

2009-03-19T08:19:00.004-04:00

Today marks six years since the start of the Iraq War and six years and five months since troops invaded Afghanistan. These wars were presumably started in response to 9/11 in the attempt to stop terrorism and protect us from Saddam’s caches of WMD.

So, how are we doing? Let’s take a look.

Over the past six years in Iraq we have buried 4,261 Americans and 317 coalition troops and seen 31,102 Americans wounded.

The death rate for Iraqi civilians is a little more sketchy with estimates by the Iraq Body Count between 91,000–99,500. Projections from the 2006 Lancet Report count nearly one million Iraqi deaths and other sources believe that four million Iraqis have been affected by the war through loss of their homes, the destruction of infrastructure, the flight to other countries and residence in Middle Eastern refugee camps.

Fortunately, the death rate in Afghanistan is not as severe with 662 Americans and 436 coalition troops killed and 2,713 Americans wounded. If you are trying to calculate Afghan military or civilian deaths, good luck in finding it.

Government spending through FY 2009 is projected at $864 for all war-related costs since 9/11, according to the October 2008 Congressional Service Report. The war in Iraq will receive an estimated $657 billion (76 percent) while expenses for the war in Afghanistan and various counter-terrorism operations is about $173 billion (20 percent). The remaining monies are $28 billion (3 percent) for enhanced base security and about $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (1 percent). Of these funds, about $812 billion (94 percent) are under the Department of Defense (DOD), nearly $52 billion (6 percent) are for foreign aid programs and embassy operations, and $8 billion (less than 1 percent) for medical care for veterans. As of July 2008, DOD’s monthly obligations for contracts and pay averaged about $12.3 billion, including $9.9 billion for Iraq, and $2.4 billion for Afghanistan,

Our national debt is now $11 trillion, according to the U.S. National Debt Clock. That includes Bush’s $750 billion stimulus package of last fall and Obama’s $787 billion package in February.

Meanwhile, more and more Americans are losing their jobs: 12.5 million or 8.1 percent workers by February 2009 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) while Bloomberg reports a projected 9.4 percent will be unemployed by end of 2009. Gallup polls show 29 percent of workers fear they will be layed off.

George W. Bush left the nation with a stained reputation throughout the world where we are seen as practitioners of torture, extraordinary rendition, Gitmo prisoner camps, killers of civilians, and now purveyors of a spendthrift, corrupt banking system, which has affected recession in countries all over the world.

Fortunately, President Obama is trying to do something about that reputation. For example, he is fulfilling a campaign pledge of withdrawing troops from Iraq in 19 months. However, about 50,000 troops will remain there for an unknown period of time. Unfortunately, he authorized a surge of 17,000 troops sent to Afghanistan. This fulfills another campaign promise.

Last August Bush sent 12,000 to 15,000 more troops to Afghanistan to join the 34,000 U.S. troops already there, according to U.S. News and World Report.

In their new book titled Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story, journalists Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, who have been on the beat in Afghanistan since the Russians were there in 1979, predict it will take 300,000 troops to quell Afghanistan.

Two days ago Admiral Eric Olson, former operational commander for coalition forces in Afghanistan, wrote an opinion piece indicating that U.S. troops are being sent to Afghanistan “without a clear strategy” in the belief that “the successful surge in Iraq can be replicated in Afghanistan.”

This surge won’t work, he said, because Afghanistan has mostly rural populations in mountainous regions with unpaved roads and bad weather. This will make troop movement and quick-response efforts very difficult.

The “growing unrest in the Pashtun territories that straddle the border with Pakistan” is another problem. Dealing with this area will take a “village-by-village, tribe-by-tribe approach,” which our troops know how to do. It will also take cooperation between the Afghan and Pakistani government with the leaders of the United States and NATO.

If you recall last fall’s presidential campaign and the primary season preceding it, the candidates hardly ever referred to our two wars. Then in September as the economic crisis was upon us, what some people call our “financial 9/11,” war receded in our minds even further.

Then, three days after he took office, President Obama authorized unmanned Predator drones to fly into two Pakistani villages where 18 civilians were killed. (Last year 30 strikes killed more than 200 people.) In February, he decided to send 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. So we’re off to a good start with our new president with regard to war, a man in whom we placed so much hope that things would be different after the past eight years.

Well, there is a kernel of hope. Unlike his predecessor, Obama listens to the people. A recent ABC/Post poll shows that Americans divide by 50-47 percent on whether the conflict in Afghanistan is worth fighting even though nearly two-thirds support the president’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. Perhaps, if we put enough pressure on him we might make a difference.

One way you can make a difference is by going to New York City on April 4 to march for peace in Iraq and Afghanistan. In your local communities you can also call attention to these two wars, which we didn’t want….and which we as a nation cannot support financially, militarily, or morally. The power of change rests in your hands.

Peace Now! Peace Now! Peace Now!

This commentary appeared in Common Dreams on Thursday, March 19, 2009

Local Woman Follows Heart to South Africa

2009-03-15T23:10:00.004-04:00

In 2003 Janet Crosby retired after 17 years of teaching in California and returned to Kalamazoo, her hometown. She was only here a week when she suddenly had a heart attack.

“It was like a major bell ringing,” said Janet, who was 63 at the time, “and it made me think differently.”

As a result, she decided to adopt a French poodle (Jacquot), earn an English as a Second Language (ESL) certificate, spend time with her grandchildren, take up genealogy—and travel.

She visited England, Scotland and China, but her trip to South Africa fulfilled her long-awaited dream.

Actually, Janet had an interest in Africa long ago but it wasn’t until she read James Michener’s book, The Covenant, that she became passionate about South Africa. Then in the mid-1980s, she joined the worldwide movement against apartheid.

“I had wanted to go to South Africa,” she said, “but I didn’t want to travel there alone and there were no tours at that time.”

Last year she discovered Cross-Cultural Solutions (www.crossculturalsolutions.org), which recruits volunteers to assist with projects in different countries, South Africa among them. Janet would not only be able to visit the country she had advocated for, she could contribute to its rebuilding.

Last fall, Janet left for South Africa and after 24 hours, she landed in Cape Town. She was assigned to Fountain House, a rehabilitation facility where “members” recovering from mental illnesses live, work, and learn job and life skills. The facility is affiliated with Fountain House in New York.

Janet worked in the Thrift Shop selling clothes, candy, coffee, soda pop and cigarettes but quickly discovered that the shop’s items were not monitored and money was disappearing. So she worked with a few members to set up a system for inventory, ordering, and pricing.

“At first I was intimidated working with people with mental illness, but after I got to know them I was less fearful. In fact, they were helpful, funny, interesting and cooperative good folks, interested in getting the job done and willing to let me help.”

She lived in a house with 30 other volunteers during her stay and was particularly impressed with the “serious young people” who talked enthusiastically about the work they were doing there: teaching, taking care of AIDS babies, assisting with the nursery schools.

Cross Cultural Solutions sponsors excursions for its volunteers and Janet took advantage of them. She visited Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for many of his 27 years behind bars.

“I was infatuated with Nelson Mandela since I first heard of apartheid,” she said.

Being at the prison immediately touched her as she realized that Mandela and people like him were incarcerated for their anti-apartheid activism. Former prisoners now serve as guides and it was moving for Janet to hear their personal stories and imagine what it was like for them.

Janet had an opportunity to tour Johannesburg. One of its highlights was the Apartheid Museum, “the most incredible museum I’ve ever seen,” she said, “because it portrays apartheid’s complex, convoluted and cruel inhumanity in a comprehensive way without attempting to screen the horrific situation the country endured.”

She also went on a four-day safari near “Jo-town” in the “amazing and awe-inspiring” Kruger National Park (www.krugerpark.co.za) where big game animals roam freely in their natural habitat. The park is now a preserve where people can camp or stay in a nearby resort.

Janet visited Soweto where a 1976 uprising between blacks and whites left 500 children dead and 1,000 wounded. New housing projects are now replacing the old metal shacks, however, Soweto was disconcerting to Janet because the change was happening but very slowly and the people were still very poor.

“I was very curious about what Soweto was like and when I got there I had a mixture of feelings, including white guilt,” she said. “Soweto is huge with millions of people who mostly live in poverty or near-poverty. It is just one place but there are many more like it.”

Spending a month in South Africa helped Janet gain more insight into the nation’s struggle to overcome its past as a Dutch, then a British colony and nearly 50 years of apartheid.

Life in South Africa today has improved since apartheid ended in 1994, said Janet, but things are still difficult. Many of the whites with money and skills left when Mandela became president and the nation is really rundown.

“I felt both guilt and wonder at how people can survive the great sadness they must have living there,” she said. “I also felt a helplessness to know that there was nothing I could do about it—and I don’t like that feeling.”

South Africa was a long way from Janet’s early life growing up on a farm near Comstock. Except for a few brief trips to Chicago, she was 21 years old before she left the state with her professor-husband. While he was a graduate student at Ohio State University, Janet got a job as an administrative assistant for the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) Institute. This work would take her on her first overseas journey to Paris for eight weeks in 1966 and again in 1967.

During summer 1986 she studied at the Sorbonne through WMU’s international studies program. In that same year she moved to Pacifica, California, (near San Francisco) to teach French and English to middle school students.

She even led 10 to 22-day student trips to France through EF Tours (www.eftours.com) for five summers and stayed on in Europe for a couple weeks afterward. As a result of her service with the company, she won an award to travel to Egypt and Israel.

Janet Crosby never imagined how far her curiosity in people and places would take her but she became a world traveler as a result.

This article appeared in the Kalamazoo Gazette City Life Section on March 7, 2009

Apologize, Apologize, Don't Feel Free to Avert Your Eyes

2009-03-02T08:40:00.001-05:00

Recently, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said it would be “wonderful if [Mr. Obama] could apologize for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on behalf of the American people.”

Such an act would be an opportunity to submit our nation to the power of forgiveness, which is what Nelson Mandela did when he became president of South Africa.

Clinical psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela of South Africa has studied how her nation sought to heal itself from the ghastly crimes of apartheid through the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC), which Bishop Tutu oversaw. Both victims and perpetrators forgave each other individual by individual and community by community and moved the country forward without violent retribution.

Through her research Gobodo-Madikizela found that forgiveness is a human response aimed at healing the wrongs of the past and going beyond what any law can provide because it calls for care and compassion of both the victim and the perpetrator. Moreover, sustained and truthful dialogue among those involved in criminal acts is the only strategy for a lasting peace.

What occurs through forgiveness is a “transcendence of the heart that begins with a recognition that gross human rights violations were committed,” said Gobodo-Madikizela. This is done by telling—and listening—to stories about what happened to individuals in a particular incident.

“It is only when the story can be heard and integrated into the individuals that the past traumatic events can be worked through,” said Gobodo-Madikizela. Then, an “empathetic repair” takes place as those involved begin the process of working through something that was broken. In this way, both perpetrator and victim are able to encounter each other’s humanity and form a connection. This is possible because each person has exposed him or herself “to the naked face of evil” that is within him/her.

What is most interesting in this dynamic is that the perpetrator has a vehicle for expressing remorse and suddenly finds an opening to his conscience that was silenced long ago because he was driven by something that permitted him to do evil deeds. In effect, he dehumanized himself while trying to dehumanize another! In asking forgiveness, he re-engages himself with those he wronged and thus re-captures his lost humanity.

What is key in this whole process is that the truth is spoken and the perpetrator acknowledges that he did something wrong.

Gobodo-Madikizela illustrated how this “truth of the heart” worked in an American setting. Kim Phuc, an international speaker and an ambassador for UNESCO, was the naked Vietnamese girl in the 1972 photo running down a road screaming from the napalm burning through her skin.

One day Kim gave a speech to a group of U.S. veterans and recalled the napalm incident. She admitted that while “we can’t change history, we can work together to change the future.” She added that someday she hoped to meet the man who dropped the napalm.

Soon after her speech she received a note that said: “I am that man.” He came forward and the two of them embraced with her sobbing: “I forgive. I forgive. I forgive.”

Gobodo-Madikizela noted that this encounter was “a gesture of so much grace” and a “turning point of transformation.” Here was a woman reaching out to the man who had done an evil deed against her—and he responded. And “there was no training involved, no 12-step program.”

Gobodo-Madikizela is quick to point out that forgiveness does not mean that the evil done is forgotten. Instead, forgiveness means that “the spirits of vengeance must be transcended.” In this way, a “moral humanity” sets in where care, compassion and empathy free both victim and perpetrator from the past and open them to healing.

“This is the beginning of hope,” she said.

While we can’t realistically expect President Obama to apologize to Iraq, we can take the initiative in asking the people of Iraq their forgiveness through various acts of kindness and outreach. For example, let us adopt various cities in Iraq as sister cities. Let us devise programs to connect with Iraqis. Let us hold public forums, demonstrations, educational programs and show films like “Why We Fight” to understand how and why our government encourages militarism. Let us support our Iraq (and Afghanistan) War veterans in the healing process for the violence they may have committed. (Psychologist Edward Tick, author of War and the Soul, illustrates how he has made a difference in the lives of veterans with PTSD since 1978.)

Maybe, just maybe we could start a movement that would have such an impact that we would compel President Obama to apologize for the invasion of Iraq and stop this illegal, immoral, unnecessary and costly war.

Actually, Candidate Obama suggested this very strategy of grassroots organization and initiative in order to beat the corporations, lobbyists and other power brokers at their own game. We need to take him up on it. We need to recognize that change is not going to happen in Washington until our leaders have an incentive to change. We can give them an incentive to change if we compound all of our small efforts together.

The times are calling us to create a new era where we, the people, take the initiative to do what our government can’t do. Then the healing in ourselves can begin and together we can cut a new path for our democracy.

Rob Anderson – Peacemaker Par Excellence -- In Memoriam

2009-02-05T21:55:00.003-05:00

Rob Anderson grew up in Monmouth, a small town on the northwestern Illinois prairie, population 10,000. Everyone walked to where they were going, came home for lunch and knew everybody in town. His father was the assistant postmaster and Monmouth College, where he earned his undergraduate degree, was three blocks away.

However, life would change drastically for Rob and everything he knew when World War II started. He would serve in transatlantic communications for General Eisenhower, become a research chemist at a prominent international pharmaceutical company and participate as a faithful and vital member of the Kalamazoo peace movement.

Tall, lean and brainy with a deep, resonant voice, Rob had already started college when the war began. Naturally, the draft became a popular topic of conversation among students. Eventually, Rob enlisted in the Army Reserve Corps and obtained a four-year deferment to finish his degree. However, in February 1943 he received orders from the U.S. Army to report to Infantry Basic Training. The Army needed smart people like Rob for technical work both during and after the war, so he took a qualifying exam for basic engineering and won a spot at St. Norbert College in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

After nine months his orders again changed and the Army sent him to the Signal Corps to train as a radio operator. In this work he learned how to type Morse Code translations for the high-speed radio teletype team. After one month’s training at the Pentagon he was sent to New York City to board a troop ship in what turned out to be the last major convoy sent to Europe in 1945.

“The sea was alive with ships as far as the eye could see,” says Rob.

On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered and Rob became part of the Army of Occupation and handled transatlantic communications for General Eisenhower’s headquarters. On April 17, 1946, he returned to the United States and picked up where he’d left off: at Monmouth College, only this time he met Amy, a first-year student there.
“Rob swept me off my feet,” says Amy. He was a hero, like all the returning soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen of World War II. And like so many of the veterans, Rob went to college through the G.I. Bill, married and had a family.

Monmouth College, a small Presbyterian college, was bulging with war veterans. Space for married couples was limited, but the Andersons found a room in a single, older woman’s house. By screening off the bedroom and sharing the bathroom and kitchen, the woman accommodated Rob and Amy—and one other returning G.I. and his wife.

Rob studied chemistry and Amy got a secretarial job in an agricultural extension office. Later they moved to the University of Illinois so Rob could obtain his master’s degree in organic chemistry. But even before he graduated, The Upjohn Company interviewed him on campus and hired him for the research unit in Kalamazoo. That was 1950 and for the next 34 years until his retirement Rob worked at Upjohn with his major responsibilities as a cataloguer and translator of pharmaceutical nomenclature.

Although Amy spent a lot of time with the peace movement beginning in 1972 and Rob was busy in the lab, the couple’s interest in peace grew and merged. Rob’s library is testament to the voluminous reading he did before his retirement, particularly on nuclear weapons and their dangers. After he left Upjohn in 1984, Rob became a full-time activist. He started by learning how to work the cameras and editing equipment at the Community Access Center where he worked on the Peace Video Project starting in May 1986. He produced and edited 202 out of the 267 programs aired over a nine-year period. Later, the Andersons served on the crew for “People and Politics,” a talk show produced over 10 years by the Kalamazoo County Democratic Party.

Rob was also a member of the Veterans for Peace and he and Amy went to several annual meetings held all over the county. (He regularly rode in the Vets for Peace float at the Memorial Day parades in downtown Kalamazoo.) He also joined the Pushkin-Kalamazoo Partnership, which holds events and fundraisers for Russian citizens needing food and medical supplies, and he volunteers at the First Presbyterian Church’s Health Clinic sorting the meds and doing other odd jobs.

In 1982 Betty Bumpers, wife of former Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, started Peace Links, a pen pal organization between Americans and Russians of the recently-fallen Soviet Union. After seeing an ad in the Kalamazoo Gazette inviting people to participate, Amy signed up and began correspondence with Galena, an English teacher from Spratov, Russia, on the Volga River. Rob also obtained a pen pal, a chemist in Kazakhstan. The two men continued to write to each other until recently.

Since 2003 Rob turned out for the Kalamazoo Nonviolent Opponents of War (KNOW) peace vigils every Sunday in front of the Federal Building. He together with Amy would also attend KNOW planning meetings and major events. Rob also helped to assemble the silhouettes, a display representing the people of Iraq who were affected by the war. The photo above of Rob shows him working on the display.

“I never considered the possibility of not continuing this peace work,” said Rob, when he was 80 just a few years ago. “War is a problem still there needing to be solved.”

“Heck, Yes!” and “Why Not?” Leads Kalamazoo Woman All Over the World for Adventure

2009-01-26T13:02:00.004-05:00

Traveling the world has been a consistent call for Janet Illeni. She has visited and lived in many parts of the world—and she always keeps her suitcase handy for new adventures.

Last June she received an e-mail from a college friend that began a whole new chapter in her life. It read: “Opportunity knocks. Jack probably will get OK and funding for a position. Interested?”

“Heck, yes,” Janet replied without hesitation. Four months later she was on her way to Chiang Mai, one of Thailand’s major cities located in the northern part of the country, to serve as the director of staff development at Prince Royal’s College (PRC).

The 66-year-old independent contractor for Sunshine Media (Scottsdale, Ariz.) decided that that she wanted a change after 15 years of publishing two bimonthly trade magazines (MD News and Builder/Architect) for western Michigan.

“The work of putting together magazines is all-consuming work,” said Janet. “It takes a lot of effort to coordinate writers and photographers, take care of the layout and printing, set-up photo shoots, establish relationships, sell advertising, edit articles and write columns for each issue.”

So she sold her car, rented her house, dismantled her business and stored her personal items.

Janet has had the travel bug since she was a student at Grinnell College. In 1963 she and five other classmates went to Europe armed with Eurail passes and dreams of seeing the continent. They drew up an itinerary but rarely followed it. Instead, they followed their “travel noses” but would occasionally meet up in designated places.

One day in Copenhagen, Janet met a diplomatic family who was looking for a tutor for their daughter. They were stationed in Trieste, Italy.

“Why not?” said Janet. She worked with the girl for the 1963-64 school year.

Trieste turned out to be more than a job, however. Janet met Guido Illeni, a young Italian lawyer, whom she married in 1964 and had two daughters: Elisa, who now lives in Carbondale, CO, and Cristina, who lives just outside of Trieste. The girls grew up speaking Italian more than English and Janet became fluent in the language and still speaks it today. The family traveled all over Italy, Sardinia and Yugoslavia on adventurous camping trips.

In August 1963, Janet had the opportunity to visit her brother, Dick Ramsdell, who was teaching through a Columbia University program in Mwanza, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), on the southern edge of Lake Victoria in southeast Africa. After asking her mother to wire her bank account of $600, the two rode an Austin-Healy all around Lake Victoria through Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and Uganda on many roads that were more like ruts than highways.

In 1978 Janet returned to the United States with her daughters and came to Kalamazoo because her widowed mother, Lucy Ramsdell (now deceased), lived here. She decided to finish her degree in linguistics at Western Michigan University and afterward obtained a master’s degree in communications.

During this time she tutored many international students and taught Career English at WMU. For seven years she taught composition and business writing at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. That’s where she met her future Chiang Mai boss, Jack Neale, who directed training and development at KVCC at that time.

From 1987-89 Janet was associate director of continuing education at Nazareth College where she managed off-campus programs, adult degree programs, weekend classes, and taught writing classes for the Nursing Program.

For five years after that she served as a copywriter for mail order catalogs at Heath Company, an electronic equipment outfit in Benton Harbor and was soon promoted to copy editor and creative manager.

“This really gave me a tremendous amount of experience for magazine publishing,” said Janet who started her own marketing and communications business after Heath Company merged with Zenith. Eighteen months later she saw an ad in the paper calling for a trade magazine publisher.

“Why not?” she said as she faxed her resume to Sunshine Media (Scottsdale, Ariz.) and got the job.

Her work as a busy publisher, however, did not deter her from travel. She visited Japan once with a high school friend and stayed with a family who was curious about Americans. Of course, they taught her much about the Japanese.

“It’s interesting to see culture through the eyes of local people, which to me is just amazing,” said Janet.

She also visited Spain, southern Mexico where she rented an apartment for a month at a time, and of course, Italy where she had family and friends.

Janet participated with Colleagues International in Kalamazoo and hosted international guests. One woman she befriended was Tatiana Schultz is from Pskov, Russia (southwest of St. Petersburg). When she had a chance to go to Russia through the Kalamazoo-Pushkin Partnership, she then visited Tatiana in her home. One of her more memorable activities of the trip was the banya or the Russian public bathhouse “where you sit in intense heat, are beaten with birch branches, take an occasional dip in an ice water pool and drink vodka served by a little babushka woman,” she said.

Janet’s stint in Chiang Mai involves working with Thai faculty members who teach English at PRC, a K-12 private, Christian school with over 6,000 students on a 40-acre campus. She describes this newly-created position as a “work in progress.”

The main problem she faces is that language learning is grammar-based and students pass exams with paper and pencil. They are not required to demonstrate oral competency.

“The kids at PRC pass their tests but they can’t speak English,” said Janet.

A big part of her job is to help faculty develop their own skills as they provide a more comprehensive whole language approach for their students.

Jack Neale, the head of the English Language Program at PRC, recruited Janet because he knew of her wide variety of skills. In just two short months she’s already helped students with the new school newspaper and taught students and faculty songs and public speaking techniques. However, her main task is to discover teachers’ needs and help them improve their English.

Another challenge Janet faces is to work with teachers who have 38 to 60 students in each of their classes and are in school from 7:45 a.m. until 4:45 p.m.—and sometimes later. This means that they are devoting a couple more hours each week to learn new teaching methods for their English classes.

“I love change, diversity and problem solving,” said Janet. “It keeps me alive. I like finding new ways of doing things and seeing that people are pleased with what I give them and enjoying the learning process.”

Although it’s part of Janet’s nature to make a decision and work out the details later, she is quite comfortable now that she is in Thailand. She has a nice two-room apartment off-campus and she recently bought a car. Driving in Chiang Mai will undoubtedly bring her many new adventures in itself because the traffic is frenetic and drivers drive on the left side of the road.

Janet is also learning Thai language, which she approaches like a puzzle. Thai, like Chinese, has written characters and tonal qualities for the same word. She diligently pours over her language book but she also uses language to make friends with native Thai speakers by asking them questions about words, phrases and pronounciations.

She also devises different tricks in remembering words. For example, a common soup with meat and noodles is called khao soi, which sounds like “cow soy.” Or she looks for similarities between Thai and other languages. For example, sà-pǒm means “to wash” and it is close to the Italian sapone, which means soap. Bpai, the transliteration of chرp-bpíng, means “to go shopping.”

“I feel I could live most anywhere in the world,” said Janet, “because I always try to learn enough of the language where I am so I can function and seek relationships with locals.”

Travel and working overseas, however, offers Janet something more: an opportunity to be an international ambassador.

“You realize how important it is to represent your own country as you want it represented,” she said. “The United States has lost status in the world’s eye in recent years. This one-on-one relationship with people from other countries can only help show others that we all are the same, we all have desires for our families and we all want comfortable lives.”

Janet has also been able to get a bird’s eye view of the predominant Buddhist culture in Thailand more intimately through a serendipitous meeting with a young monk at a temple. The two struck up a friendship and began conversations about the Buddhist religion, culture, and philosophy.

This sort of religious encounter interests Janet. Her father was a Methodist minister and a theologian who taught at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. Her mother held a master’s degree in religious education. She, herself, is a member of the People’s Unitarian Universalist Church, which believes in religious freedom and diversity as a means of seeking wisdom and truth as well as justice and compassion in the world.

“I love the way the Thais wei each other when they meet and say good-bye,” said Janet. (The wei is the pressing of hands together prayer style in front of the face.) “It’s beautiful and respectful. I love it that Buddhism is totally respectful of other religions.”

This latest leg of Janet’s world travels has only enhanced her thirst for travel. During school vacations, she plans to visit other cities in Thailand and to explore other countries in Southeast Asia. For the Christmas holiday she visited Ko Mak, a small island just six bus hours and a 45-minute speedboat ride southeast of Bangkok in the Gulf of Thailand.

“There’s so much more of the world I want to see and wonder how to fit it all in,” she said.

Janet encourages all Americans, especially the young, to travel because it is a way to become involved in uniting the world’s peoples.

“I am happy to be an American, but I also consider myself a world citizen. The United States is not an island. We are a part of the global economy and citizens in a world that need to communicate with each other. Students should take every opportunity available to go on study abroad or to be exposed to another language.”

Portions of this article appeared in the Kalamazoo Gazette, January 21, 2009.

Down in the Dumps

2009-01-18T13:10:00.004-05:00

I’m afraid I didn’t share the same reaction Nicholas Kristof did after he visited a garbage dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where the poorest of the poor live. Nor did I come to the same conclusion as he did in believing that sweatshops are an alternative for employment.

I visited a dump in Mae Sot, Thailand, last month, and like Kristof, found it to be a “Dante-like vision of hell.” You might say the people there are the waste products of the global economy.

Mae Sot, reputedly a “frontier town” made up of 120,000 Thais, Burmese, Indians and Asian Muslims, is not far from the Thai-Myanmar border in the northwestern part of the country. The people living on the dump are Burmese refugees and illegal immigrants whose government is so oppressive, they consider themselves “lucky” to be where they are. They would probably have no place else to go had the Thai government not accepted them or at least turned a blind eye to their presence.

The air at the dump is filled with the stink of rotting garbage that is so foul it stays with you several hours after you leave.

The water the people drink, cook and wash with is polluted, including the beautiful, tranquil lake near the dump.

The ground is covered by mounds and mounds of trash, much of it toxic waste. While the dump’s perimeter is surrounded by luscious trees, wild sugar cane and weeds, the trash heaps keep expanding into these greener areas where the people live. So they simply give up and live on top of the trash.

Their “houses” are typically made of 10x10 foot bamboo frames covered with old tarpaulin. Tires are placed on the tarpaulin to steady it against heavy winds and rains. A lone “house” sits on one of the highest trash piles. It is either a sentinel or a defiant witness to the disgusting circumstances of this place.

Black hogs forage through the garbage oblivious to the people around them. Dogs wander about just like those in town do only these dogs are gaunt and diseased with open sores splaying through their fur.

Trash burns. Pools of mud lay stagnant, even in the winter’s dry season. A rat lies flattened in a two-dimensional profile of itself. A small, white plastic spoon, like the kind I’ve used for soup in the town’s restaurants, lies pressed into the loose dirt.

Suddenly, an industrious boy, about 10, eagerly runs to his house with a matched pair of boots that he apparently found in a heap. He stores them under the “floor,” which is a series of bamboo poles layed across the frame of the house and covered with an old mattress, rags and boards over a hole dug underneath the structure. Some rural Thais elevate their houses on stilts in order to keep the rats away. I doubt this boy’s “house” provides the same protection.

My guides who brought me here also bring eight dozen oranges to share with the people, who gratefully and graciously accept the treats. Some people keep their oranges to eat later while others, especially the children, attack them voraciously as they let the peelings drop on the ground. Their black-stained fingers take sections of the fruit apart. Then they shove the orange into their mouths noticeably savoring the juicy freshness so foreign to them.

The faces of the children are smudged with dirt, a complement to the yellowish-white “tree chalk” their parents have pasted on them, a typical relief treatment from the tropical heat that even city kids sport. In fact, the kids’ whole bodies are covered with dirt from the dump and from the second-hand clothes they find there. Most of the kids wear flip flops but some walk blithely in colorful rubber boots that protect their bare feet from the broken glass, cans, splintered wood and filth.

Whatever they have, the people have probably found it by rummaging through the trash. The children play with discarded toys. A toddler curiously investigates the properties of a deflated orange balloon by sucking on it. Some boys play soccer with a “ball” made out of a trash-filled plastic bag tied together.

A small group of men play dominoes and sip tea from tossed-out cups. They are intent on their game amid the activity of the oranges, the Western visitors and the mother bathing her squirming toddler in water nearby.

There is some schooling available to the children but it is meager. For these kids there is not much of a future that education could give them anyway—and their parents know it.

All 400 people living at the dump work: men, women and children. What attracts them here are the plastic bags strewn all over the dump. They collect the bags in four-foot long baskets that they carry on their backs to the recycling center about half a mile down the dusty road. The center gives them two baht (6 cents) per kilo for the plastic bags. They used to get five baht (17 cents) per kilo but the worldwide economic slowdown has affected prices even here.

If the recycling center closes, the people will lose their income in the same way that Kristof feared closed sweatshops would put people out of work. The pitiful thing about this situation is that keeping the recycling center and the sweatshops going is presumed to be the most humanitarian thing that can be done for these poor, poor people.

Kristof’s contention is that it’s better for the people to work in a sweatshop than to live in these dumps. Even the people, themselves, say they prefer a sweatshop to the hot, filthy, stinky dump.

However, these choices are specious. Mae Sot already has 250 sweatshops with many more on the drawing board. It is unlikely that the people living on the dump will get these jobs. They have no skills or legal papers.

What we need to understand from impoverished areas like Mae Sot or Phnom Penh is that our free market structures are bringing ALL the world’s people down into what human rights activist Charles Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee against sweatshops calls a “race to the bottom.” Those who produce the products, those who buy the products and those who live off of the products once they have been discarded are all pathetically bound together. And unless this system changes, there is no exit from it for anyone.

The Black Swan Visits the Land of Smiles

2008-12-05T02:22:00.003-05:00

I was supposed to go to Thailand three days ago, however, protesters closed the airport the week before and made connecting flights to Bangkok impossible. A week later when the airport re-opened, the backlog of cancelled flights made reliable flight information difficult to obtain. So rather than take a chance on getting stuck in Tokyo’s Narita Airport without my connection, I sadly cancelled my trip.

It seemed an easy task to go to Thailand. December kicks off the tourist season with hot and sunny weather. Thailand is a safe, interesting, low-cost place to go. The people are welcoming and accommodating. It is a casual place so packing is easy. However, something was brewing below the surface that gave everyone a big surprise.

The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) wanted Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to resign. They said he had committed election fraud and believed he was acting as a proxy for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who had been ousted in a coup two years before. To press their point, the PAD took over Suvarnabhumi International Airport and Don Muang Airport, which handles domestic flights.

A lot of people were pretty angry about the PAD’s protest, besides the 230,00 to 350,000 people who were left stranded. The new, $4-billion Suvarnabhumi serves as Southeast Asia’s major hub for tourism and export trade, which is the foundation of the Thai economy. Its closure threatened economic disaster. The king’s birthday, treated as a national holiday and scheduled for Dec. 5, would be spoiled. Finally, once the crisis began, the government knew the world would be watching, so it had to handle the situation well.

My sister-in-law and I watched the news intently for developments. We were to meet in Tokyo and then go on to Bangkok. She kept telling me that the situation would be resolved quickly and peacefully because “the Thais are not an antagonistic or violent people.” This seemed to play out because the police largely resisted using force against the protesters.

On Dec. 1, the Constitution Court dissolved the People Power, Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya parties on charges of electoral fraud. It then threw out the prime minister on Dec. 3. The PAD protesters had won. When my sister-in-law passed through the airport two days later, she noticed no evidence that a major disturbance had just taken place.

The situation in Bangkok barely received any media attention, neither its crisis nor its resolution, but what distresses me is that this crisis may be “Black Swan event.”

Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, is a native of Lebanon. He comments that his country was a peaceful, multicultural land for over a thousand years. When civil war suddenly broke out in 1975, no one believed it would last because past history dictated that it never did. People stayed in hotels for months waiting for things to blow over. Others were exiled for years waiting. No one anticipated that the war would go on until 1990.

Taleb’s homeland experience eventually led him to formulate the “Black Swan” principle, which recognizes that “our world is dominated by the extreme, the unknown, and the very improbable” and getting to be more so. These events can be bad, like the Lebanon civil war or 9/11, or they can be good, like J.K. Rowling’s chance creation of Harry Potter or Barack Obama’s unprecedented election to the presidency.

When extreme events occur, Taleb says that we should regard them as “starting points” for a new direction rather than just a blip in an unchanging continuum. Understanding these events through the lenses of the past doesn’t accurately provide insight into their handling in the present or their effect on the future. In fact, it cripples innovation and flexibility and dealing with reality.

The airport closures in Thailand were an extreme event in a place that hasn’t traditionally had much conflict. The country is known as the “Land of Smiles” for that very reason. However, Reuters reports that the effects of the airport shutdowns are already devastating and pervasive, which means that last week’s standoff could lead to further conflict, which could escalate to revenge, retaliation, even war.

Let’s look at what has transpired so far. Bangkok Airways (THAI) lost 20 billion baht (about $606 million) as more than 1,000 flights were cancelled and prospective customers abandoned their travel plans. Low-cost carrier Thai AirAsia lost more than 320 million baht (about $9.5 million).

The airlines are looking into whether or not they will press legal action against the protesters. The courts must then determine whether the airport demonstrations should be classified as a riot or as civil unrest. The PAD says it anticipated possible legal action and already raised funds for its defense.

Although airport officials managed a “technical return to full operation” with a promise to “return to normalcy” by December 15, there is some question about their skimping on airport security and that has many ambassadors hopping angry, including our own.

On top of all this, the 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand became “slightly ill” with a throat infection and was unable to speak or attend his birthday party.

Everyone wants a return to normalcy, of course, however, will it be possible? I hope so, especially since some Thais fear that there might be a power struggle over the selection of a new prime minister and result in more anti-government protests, according to the Bangkok Post.

Actually, I must admit that the reason I wanted to go on this trip was because I thought it might be my last. The world has changed since I first began traveling internationally 25 years ago. Terrorism, political crises, weather disruptions, economic woes, high oil prices and war threaten to prevent or impede safe and convenient travel.

The United States and a great many countries have made tremendous strides in educating their people about the world through travel. Millions of people have cultivated a broader global perspective by visiting different places and meeting others through study abroad programs, tour groups, sister-city relationships, school and organizational exchange programs, business, citizen summitry efforts and even space walks. Travel is a peace-building mechanism that opens us to the new and unfamiliar and to appreciate other cultures and societies. It is a means of reaching out to others and forming friendships. We must protect our ability to travel.

Seriously, Excommunication over Women’s Ordination?

2008-11-23T21:12:00.004-05:00

The Vatican has threatened Father Roy Bourgeois with excommunication if he doesn’t take back his position that women be ordained priests.

The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith notified Bourgeois by letter on Oct. 21 and gave him 30 days to respond. The deadline seemed suspiciously timed to the annual weekend demonstration of School of the Americas Watch (SOAW). Since 1990 thousands of people have gathered at Fort Benning, Ga, to demand closure of the U.S. Army’s combat training school for Latin American soldiers.

Bourgeois responded to the Vatican on Nov. 7 with a letter refusing to comply because he said the Church’s teaching on this issue was wrong and he could not in good conscience support it.

Bourgeois, 70, entered the Maryknoll Missionary Order after serving as a U.S. naval officer for four years, including one year in Vietnam where he received the Purple Heart. In 1972 he was ordained and sent to Bolivia for his first mission. He has been an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America since 1980 after a Salvadoran death squad raped and killed four American churchwomen. In 1990 he founded the SOAW.

What led to this altercation between the Vatican and Bourgeois was his homily at the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 58, on August 9 in Lexington, Ky. She was the sixth woman ordained this year in the United States, according to the NCR.

Actually, the last slap down on women’s ordination occurred in 1994 when Pope John Paul II placed a gag rule on the subject after persistent calls for ordination were uncorked in 1979 by Sister Theresa Kane who pleaded with the pope to reconsider his position. It’s now timely to talk about it once again.

The Church claims that the priesthood should remain male because Jesus was a man, his 12 apostles were all men and the Church has never had women priests.

The Women’s Ordination Conference counters these arguments by citing two Scripture passages:

“In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or citizen, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus.” — Galatians 3:28

“Humankind was created as God’s reflection: in the divine image God created them, female and male, God made them.” — Genesis 1:27

The early Church did not have an ordained priesthood. Breaking bread and doing good works for others was considered a shared responsibility of both men and women. Celebrating the Eucharist was a reminder of their commitment to be like Jesus—not in physical appearance, but in word and deed. Archeologists have even found images on frescoes, mosaics and tombs of women serving these ministerial roles dating from 100-820 C.E. in the Mediterranean region, according to the Women’s Ordination Conference.

Throughout its 2,000-year history, the Church has reversed its position on many issues so it’s entirely possible it could do the same with women’s ordination. For example, one of the Church’s most blatant blunders was its belief that the sun revolved around the earth. When Galileo (1564-1642) proved that theory inaccurate, the Church accused him of heresy and restricted him for the last 10 years of his life. In 1992, the Church publicly forgave Galileo for his “crimes.”

Corrupt bishops and priests and the practice of indulgences and other financial abuses led Martin Luther to launch the Protestant Reformation in 1517. The Church responded with the reform-oriented Council of Trent (1545-63), which founded seminaries for priest training, urged religious communities to return to their spiritual foundations and encouraged new spiritual movements that focused on the devotional life and personal relationship with Jesus.

The Church has also succumbed to change on its own accord. For example, the Italians seemed to have control over the papacy after four and a half centuries until 1978 when John Paul II, a Pole, and his successor, Benedict XVI, a German, started a “new tradition.” Some people think the next pope will come from Africa or Latin America.

The past 30 years have seen women all over the world make giant strides in taking on leadership roles. One almost made it to the U.S. presidency. So it was not totally surprising that on June 29, 2002, seven women stepped up to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood. Since then, over 60 others have followed, most of them Americans, according to the Women’s Ordination Conference. Four of the women priests are bishops and nearly 100 more are in a preparation program sponsored by the Roman Catholic Women Priests.

The idea of women priests is no longer an aberration, according to a September 2005 Gallup Organization survey where 63 percent of U.S. Catholics said they supported ordaining women and only 29 percent indicated that an exclusive male, celibate clergy was “very important.” The Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken in April 2005 found the same thing.

The Episcopalian Church can probably be thanked for much of this attitude change. It started on July 29, 1974, when 11 women forced the issue by finding three bishops willing to ordain them. Two years later, the 72nd General Convention in Philadelphia passed a resolution declaring that “no one shall be denied access” to ordination on the basis of their sex. In 2006 the Episcopalians elected their first presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori.

The Vatican is undoubtedly fearful that women’s ordination will further divide the Church. The dissension suffered since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) has been enormous and no one is in the mood for much more. Catholics left the Church in droves. Priests and nuns quit. Vocations plummeted. Recently, parish closings are affected by a priest shortage and the pedophilia scandals have caused mistrust and anger.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reported last February that 28 percent of adults have left the faith in which they were raised with Catholics coming out as the largest group—about 10 percent out of a population of 305 million Americans.

Admittedly, it’s difficult for an institution to change, especially one as huge, as old and as steeped in tradition as the Catholic Church. But traditions are man-made, not God-made. And one might conclude that this confluence of events signals God’s call for the Church to renew itself yet again.

The Church has endured difficulties in the past and it has adjusted. Quite frankly, today’s problems are so great, we need every leader we can get. To eliminate half of the population from priestly leadership is to see the world with only one eye or to fix it with only one arm.

Gender shouldn’t determine whether or not a person is fit to be a priest. Neither should class, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation for that matter. The priesthood should be open to men and women who are called to it. And those who advocate for women’s ordination, like Father Roy Bourgeois, should not be punished for their public stands. We need to concentrate our energies on the things that matter!

A Call to Hope and a Healing of the Past

2008-11-18T22:00:00.006-05:00

Some people believe that forgiving the perpetrators of horrendous crimes is letting them off the hook. Victims want revenge. Families of victims expect retribution.

Most people concede that the death penalty or lifetime imprisonment is the only viable way to handle such criminals. Anything less would be seen as acting irresponsibly to society. The assumption is that such punishments teach criminals a lesson and stop would-be criminals from committing crimes. That’s what the criminal justice system is designed to do.

However, the criminal justice system can’t address perpetrators of nation-wide, systemic crimes, which is occurring more frequently in more countries all over the world. While the law might call for justice, which is usually interpreted as “punishment,” such a strategy tends to reproduce an unending cycle of violence. So where can governments turn? What can grassroots people do? The answer is: forgiveness.

The world expected violence to break out in South Africa when apartheid ended in 1994 and four million white Afrikaners lost control over the country’s 40 million blacks and coloreds. However, as Episcopalian Bishop Desmond Tutu, head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said: “It didn’t happen.”

Tutu has also pointed out that if peace could come to South Africa where the crimes against humanity were “so ghastly,” it could happen anywhere.

So, how did it happen in South Africa? How was it possible that after so much tragedy, the victims of apartheid forgave their countrymen of heinous crimes that were not only government-sponsored but sanctioned by church theology? How could healing and peace take place among people whose friends and families had been killed and where whole cities were terrorized?

Clinical psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela of South Africa has made it her charge to find out. She has facilitated countless encounters between victims and their families with the perpetrators of apartheid through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She even interviewed and counseled Eugene de Kock, apartheid’s death squad chief who was often referred to as “Prime Evil” itself. (She recounted her encounters with him in her 2004 best-selling book, A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid.

Gobodo-Madikizela’s work has led her to believe that a human response aimed at healing the wrongs of the past go beyond what the law can provide because it calls for care and compassion for both the victim and the perpetrator. Moreover, sustained and truthful dialogue about the past among those involved in criminal acts is the ONLY strategy for a lasting peace without a backlash of violence.

What occurs in forgiveness is a “transcendence of the heart” that begins with a recognition that gross human rights violations were committed. This is done by telling—and listening—to stories about what happened to individuals in a particular incident.

“It is only when the story can be heard and integrated into the individuals that the past traumatic events can be worked through,” said Gobodo-Madikizela. Then, an “empathetic repair” takes place as those involved begin the process of working through something that was broken. In this way, both perpetrator and victim are able to encounter each other’s humanity and form a connection. This is possible because each person has exposed him or herself “to the naked face of evil” that is within him/her.

The perpetrator who is able to express remorse suddenly finds an opening to his conscience that was silenced long ago because he was driven by something that allowed him to do these evil deeds. In effect, he had dehumanized himself! In asking forgiveness, he wants to re-engage himself with those he wronged.

Gobodo-Madikizela says that there is something innate in human nature that connects us to others when we are in pain: we want to rescue them because we can feel their pain. This is not a cognitive response but rather an emotional one where victim and perpetrator are present to each other and suddenly mirror each other’s humanity.

What is key in this process is that the truth is spoken and perpetrators acknowledge that they have done something wrong.

It is also significant that the Truth and Reconciliation Committees took place in a public space instead of being hidden in private. Revealing the truth in public “validates” the participants’ horrific experience, said Gobodo-Madikizela.

Likewise, each person became accountable for his/her actions by listening to each other’s story and the “truth of the heart.” Such is the difference between the law and reconciliation.

In law, the perpetrator attempts to deny and escape the truth as his defense. In reconciliation, the perpetrator remorsefully lays himself bare to tell the victims and their families what he did and to ask their mercy for his crimes. In this way the victims, who already know pain, are able to connect with and reach out to the very person who caused it.

Gobodo-Madikizela illustrated how this happened in an American setting she witnessed with Kim Phuc, the subject of the Pulitzer-Prize winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War in 1972. Kim was the naked girl running down a road, screaming in pain from the napalm that was burning through her skin. Kim has since become an international speaker and an ambassador for UNESCO.

One day Kim met with a group of U.S. veterans and recalled the napalm incident. She admitted that while “we can’t change history, we can work together to change the future.” She added that someday she hoped to meet the man who dropped the napalm.

Soon after her speech she received a note that said: “I am that man.” He came forward and the two of them embraced with her sobbing: “I forgive. I forgive. I forgive.”

Gobodo-Madikizela noted that this encounter was “a gesture of so much grace.” Here was a woman reaching out to the man who had done an evil deed. And “there was no training involved, no 12-step program.”

After this encounter, other American Vietnam veterans arranged to return to Kim Phuc’s village to meet with the people there, to tell stories and to share each other’s pain.

“This is [an example of] the turning point of transformation,” said Gobodo-Madikizela.

Clinical psychologist Edward Tick who has worked with Vietnam veterans since 1978 (and now is seeing Iraq and Afghanistan vets) relates a similar experience with men who have suffered PTSD in his book War and the Soul. Among his treatments are return trips to Vietnam as well as invitations for the men to participate in Native American sweat lodge rituals.

Gobodo-Madikizela is quick to point out that forgiveness does not mean that the evil deeds committed are forgotten. Instead, forgiveness means that “the spirits of vengeance must be transcended.” That allows a “moral humanity” to set in where care, compassion and empathy are seen as freeing oneself—and a nation—from the past, which is what South Africa has strived to do.

“This is the beginning of hope,” she said, “that the past can be healed.”

As our country moves on to a new presidency and with all the terrible baggage of our history behind us, may we begin this new era with hope and truth, forgiveness and reconciliation.

2008-08-29T08:44:00.006-04:00

Friday, September 19 at 8 p.m.

Unity Church of Kalamazoo
(1204 Whites Road between S. Westnedge and Oakland)

Tickets $15 for adults and $5 for students. Buy them at the door or order in advance by calling 269-731-4289.

This program is presented by the U.S. Department of Peace campaign in SW Michigan. www.dopmichigan6th.org and www.WakeUpLaughing.com

Ask a wise Swami what he’s doing delivering political jokes, and he’ll give you a wise answer: “Because there’s definitely something funny going on.”

Swami Beyondananda, whose favorite yoga pose is tongue-in-cheek, is coming to Kalamazoo on Friday, September 19, 2008 in an event sponsored by the U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence Campaign of Southwestern Michigan.

At a time when the economy is suffering from the “Greenspan Effect” (i.e., not enough green to span the average month), the Swami seeks to bring cosmic comedy and healing laughter to the political conversation. Why laughter? Because, as the Swami will tell you, “There’s definitely something funny going on!”

Swami is campaigning to help politics rise to a higher level—through levity, of course. “We don’t need a revolution in this country,” the Swami declares. “What we need now is an evolution where we the people realize we are the leaders we’ve been waiting for. Fortunately, people are waking up and wising up—and that’s good, because we could sure use a good ‘up-wising!’”

In these times where war is too often seen as the solution instead of the problem, the Swami says it’s time to try something new. “If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we will only get what we’ve always gotten. Like spending our energy getting even. What a waste! An eye for an eye only creates blindness. So I have another new slogan for the new millennium: Don’t get even ... get odd!”

And they hardly come any odder than the Swami, whose comedy has been described both as “comedy disguised as wisdom” and “wisdom disguised as comedy.” Just a look at the titles of his books, CDs and DVD indicate that this turban-powered comedian sees the world from a slightly different angle: Yogi From Muskogee. Don’t Squeeze the Shaman. Beyondananda and Beyond. Drive Your Karma, Curb Your Dogma. Duck Soup for the Soul, Supreme Court Jester, Tickling the Body Politic.

Swami’s latest book Swami for Precedent: A 7-Step Plan to Heal the Body Politic and Cure Electile Dysfunction, uses the magic of humor to enlighten, encourage and empower anyone who wants a more just, healthy and sustainable world. With mind-expanding wit and heart-opening humor, the Swami offers a 7-Step Plan because “frankly, we don’t have time for 12 steps.”

Swami is the alter ego of California-based writer and humorist Steve Bhaerman, who claims that Swami first flew into his head twenty-nine years ago. “I was struck by enlightening during a brainstorm,” Steve says. Swami first appeared in Pathways Magazine, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based publication serving the newly blossoming holistic community. Steve noticed that even if people read nothing else, they would eagerly turn to Swami’s column each month.

In the early years, Swami was a sacred cowpoke, poking fun at overly serious aspirants and the foibles of self-styled seekers. Something about the Swami would let him get away with telling an audience, “There’s a seeker born every minute, and two to take him along the path,” or offering them the prosperity mantra, “Everything I eat turns to money, and my drawers are full of cash.”

Now the mission has changed, but Swami’s offbeat perspective as an “uncommontator” remains. “For years,” Steve says, “people everywhere have been cultivating consciousness and talking about spirituality. Now it’s time to turn the talkie into a walkie-talkie. Politics—the way we make our community, national and world decisions—is applied spirituality. Swami’s new mission is to awaken the body politic to this truth. And what better way to wake up than to wake up laughing?”

Join the “Cosmic Comic” for some serious laughter for serious times. And tell your friends because when it comes to laughter, the more the merrier. Guaranteed to keep you laughing till the sacred cows come home!

The event marks a return of the Swami, supreme master of levity and guru of political and social satire, who incarnated in Kalamazoo in September 2007. People who saw him then are still laughing.

This event is a FUNdraiser and awareness raiser for the U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence Campaign in Michigan’s Sixth Congressional District.

Swami will perform at Unity Church of Kalamazoo, 1204 Whites Road (between South Westnedge and Oakland) in Kalamazoo, on Friday, September 19th at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $15, and $5 for students. A Full House is expected (and maybe even a Royal Flush), so advance tickets are recommended.

For advance tickets or more information, please call (269) 731-4289. The SW Michigan Department of Peace Campaign can be found online at www.dopmichigan6th.org.

To find out about Swami’s World Win Tour schedule and his books and other products, visit him online at www.wakeuplaughing.com or call toll free (800) SWAMI-BE

Be Careful What You Ask For

2008-08-07T07:51:00.004-04:00

Today is the 63rd anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, which resulted in the deaths of 200,000 people. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and killed another 70,000.

The bombings signify the first time one nation used an atom bomb against another. Apologists for “the Bomb” justify the action because the Japanese would have fought to the death—and brought along a lot of Americans with them.

Col. Paul Tibbits, pilot of the B-52 bomber Enola Gay that carried “Little Boy,” never expressed regret for the Hiroshima mission nor lost sleep over it. In 2002 the retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General responded to Studs Terkel’s question about whether or not he had any second thoughts.

“Second thoughts? No. Studs, look. Number one, I got into the air corps to defend the United States to the best of my ability. That's what I believe in and that's what I work for.... So, no, I had no problem with it. I knew we did the right thing because when I knew we'd be doing that I thought, yes, we're going to kill a lot of people, but by God we're going to save a lot of lives. We won't have to invade (Japan).

Other people involved in the mission had different reactions, however.

On Tinian Island, Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, blessed the crews before their flight and even blessed “the Bomb!” For the next 47 years of his life, he not only had a change of heart about the bombing but about war in general.

In 1985 on the 40th anniversary of Hiroshima, Father Zabelka gave a speech about the bombings, war and the Church’s misguided stance on just war theory. He also talked about how he sought forgiveness from his God and from the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The “father of the atom bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer, regretted building his new invention. As he watched the first successful demonstration of “the Bomb,” he reported that a line from the Bhagavad Gita immediately came to mind: “I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

There is no argument that the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war, however, we need to reflect on the effects “the Bomb” has had on the world and on what we have become.

First of all, we must recognize that an American president (Franklin D. Roosevelt) commissioned the Manhattan Project to build “the Bomb” and another one (Harry S. Truman) ordered it to be dropped. Although we tried to beat Hitler in developing “the Bomb,” we must also admit that winning this race allowed us to kill massive numbers of people in the process. Any dictionary would define such action as genocide.

Secondly, the military industrial complex (MIC) has created a culture of fear and a stranglehold on this nation. The military’s needs are pitted against citizens’ needs in a competition for resources and by dangling defense industry jobs in front of people’s votes. The MIC also threatens our democracy by influencing congressional district boundary lines, making deals with private contractors and skewing budgeting priorities in its favor.

Thirdly, after winning World War II the U.S. government decided to build bigger and more lethal bombs. This choice inadvertently unleashed an arms race where other nations followed our lead in playing the same deadly game of “protecting national security.”

The world has become increasingly unsafe with nuclear weapons proliferation. Worse yet, Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, estimates that another 20 to 30 countries are now capable—and interested—in building their own Bombs!

The following list the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles, according to data compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Nuclear Weapon Archive. It shows the number of warheads each country has as well as the year of their first successful weapons test:

United States – 9,962 with 5,736 active (1945)
Russia – 8,600 (1949)
United Kingdom - 200 (1952)
France - 350 (1960)
China - 400 (1964)
India - 60-90 (1974)
Pakistan – 24-48 (1998)

In 1974 India began developing “the Bomb” but it wasn’t until 1998 that it successfully tested one. Six months later its archrival, Pakistan, tested its own Bomb in order to counteract India’s.

In 2006, North Korea let the world know it, too, had “the Bomb,” although recent negotiations presumably convinced them to dismantle it.

Many people suspect that Israel has a stash of 75-200 warheads, however, leaders remain tight-lipped about reporting these weapons.

Although the members of the Nuclear Club have been dismantling many of their weapons, the world currently has about 31,000 nuclear warheads, according to Nuclear Files with 13,000 warheads active and about 4,600 on high alert.

The United States alone has a nuclear stockpile worth at least $5 trillion, according to Stephen I. Schwartz, editor of the 1998 book Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940.

Nevertheless, despite all its might, the U.S. military is still not satisfied. In 1997 it stepped up its strategic weapons capacity with Vision 2020. This plan aims to exploit and dominate outer space by linking all land, sea and air-based weapons systems. (It is important to note that Vision 2020 would violate the United Nations’ 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which banned the deployment of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in space.)

“The Clinton administration opened the door to developing space weapons but that administration never did anything about it. The Bush policy now goes further [with a weapon-in-space plan designed in 2004]” said Michael Krepon of the Stimson Center, a Washington-based international peace and security non-profit institution.

Last fall, concern about “the Bomb” was immediately stirred up when President Bush said that Iran’s desire to acquire nuclear power could lead to the development of nuclear weapons, which could lead to World War III. Even recent revelations that the Iranians ended their weapons program in 2003 didn’t quell the administration’s “fears” over Iran.

Fortunately, there is a growing worldwide movement to eliminate nuclear weapons arsenals because of the danger they pose to all life on earth, especially in the hands of would-be terrorists. However, most Americans are largely unaware of the vastness and lethality of U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles, say Sisters Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson. The three nuns did time in federal prison for breaking into a Colorado Minuteman III missile site in October 2002 as a protest to nuclear weapons. They also said that the end of the Cold War somehow gave people the impression that the weapons had disappeared.

On this anniversary of our country’s dropping of two atom bombs on civilians—especially as we continue to wage an unjustified war in Iraq where one million people have lost their lives—let us face the question of why we need to continue this insane preparation for nuclear holocaust.

Let us admit our faults, ask the world’s forgiveness and show authentic leadership by dismantling ALL our nuclear weapons as an example to all nations.

The U.S. government’s desire to save the world from communism, terrorism or any other abstract or imagined enemy is misguided, misspent and extremely dangerous. We should instead be focused on the REAL threats to our lives such as environmental degradation, climate change, resource depletion, overpopulation, world hunger and global capitalism.

Pandora's Hope

2008-07-23T22:40:00.003-04:00

Three distinguished campaigners for peace, justice, and sustainability presented a panel discussion on “Pandora’s Hope: A Livable World in a Nuclear Age,” Thursday, July 17, at Skyridge Church of the Brethren in Kalamazoo.

Tom Small, environmental activist, who introduced the panel, and Robert Weir, author of “Peace, Justice, Care of the Earth,” who moderated, explained the Greek myth of Pandora, whose curiosity compelled her to open a box of “gifts,” which released all the evils now afflicting humankind. The last gift in the box, however, was Hope. Is there hope, they asked, in this age of crisis, threatened with nuclear annihilation, disastrous climate changes and massive extinctions of species.

Each panelist addressed the question in a different way. Mike Nickerson, a founding member of the Green Party of Canada and author of “Planning for Seven Generations” and “Life, Money and Illusion: Living on Earth As If We Want to Stay,” explained that throughout humanity’s very long childhood and adolescence, more people, more powerful tools, and cheaper, more efficient energy enabled us to better provide for each other. But now that we’ve reached maturity, filled the earth, and are exhausting its resources, this same process is drastically undermining our well-being.

“The main obstacle,” he said, “to solving our present complex of problems is the customs and institutions that were established in the past to encourage growth. It’s a question of direction. Will we continue to expand until we cause irreparable damage, or will we choose a new direction and provide for our needs in a way that can be sustained indefinitely on this wonderful planet?”

Nickerson is the husband and activist partner of Donna Dillman, who spoke of the destructive power of uranium weapons and uranium mining. When uranium mining was to begin last fall near her eastern Ontario home, she fasted for 68 days to protest and to raise public awareness of the dangers.

“When the full cycle of mining, generation, atomic weaponry, and waste disposal is considered, nuclear technology is not cheap, not safe, not clean, and certainly not affordable,” Dillman stated.

"When dealing with one of the most serious matters on the planet,” she said, “drastic measures become necessary.”

The third panelist, Cliff Kindy, organic farmer and long-time peace activist, spoke of his experience as a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq, both before and during the current Iraq War, most recently to teach nonviolent peace-action techniques in the northern Kurdish area.

While there, Kindy learned of radiation contamination illnesses and birth defects which increased dramatically in areas most affected by the depleted-uranium weapons used by the U.S. Kindy now leads protests against and studies of the effects of the manufacturing of depleted uranium weapons by Aerojet Ordinance in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

He spoke of the destructive effects of depleted uranium and the fact that though the U.S. continues to manufacture DU weapons, Europe and the U.N. have banned their use.

The forum concluded with animated discussion between the audience and the panelists on ways to change direction and hopes for achieving a livable and sustainable world in a nuclear and destructive age.

Dillman’s final words were, “To protest and to raise public awareness of the dangers we face, we’ll need to be in the streets. I’ll see you there.”

Many thanks to Tom Small who submitted this post.

Prescription for Peace: Moving from Control to Compassion

2008-07-11T21:14:00.005-04:00

Father Michael Crosby, OFM Cap., was in New York on September 11 and saw the smoke streaming from the World Trade Center towers. Two days later, as the wind shifted in his direction, his eyes began to water and his mouth and nose became parched. He thenrealized that the smoke contained the remains of both the perpetrators and the victims.

“It was a most powerful experience. In the smoke was the world of good and evil,” he said.

With only a white board, a red and a blue marker and a Bible, the author, lecturer and retreat director led a two-hour discussion on how to counteract violence in our world at the Transformations Spirituality Center of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Nazareth, Mich.

“Control is at the heart of all violence in the world. That is why we have terrorism and counter-terrorism,” said Father Crosby, 68. “And it won’t stop. Power is the ability to influence, it can be a force for good or for harm.”

Totalitarian regimes, for example, use their power by exploiting others, he said. As a market economy, American advertisers use their power by manipulating people’s feelings and identities and by preying on our insecurities. Likewise, the Catholic Church uses its power to dominate others, especially women, through fear and intimidation.

These negative uses of power injure and abuse people and they all come down to the obsessive need to control others and not care about them, he said. And power that employs violence severs relationships in many ways through physical, emotional, sexual, even verbal abuse.

“Verbal abuse all by itself can destroy a relationship,” he said. “It can be a warning of physical abuse to come.”

Father Crosby also railed against institutionalized violence where the system supports unequal relationships as the norm. He illustrated this point with the example of a Pakistani woman who sought a divorce and was murdered by her parents in the name of family or community honor.

“Institutional violence is why we have racism, sexism, ageism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, tribalism, elitism,” said Father Crosby who added that the source of violence is WITHIN us, not outside of us.

"When we are violent it means we don’t care about whether we inflict injury or impose our will on another person. Violence in any form, however, is never justified. It is always a sin.”

Father Crosby criticized the violence done by political commentators like Ann Coulter who call dissenters of the Bush administration’s policy to wage war on Iraq “unpatriotic” and “traitorous.” The Catholic Church has done the same thing by calling people who disagree with the Holy Father disloyal, heretical, and deserving of excommunication.

“We have got to find another way of communicating,” said Father Crosby. “Not to engage in discourse encourages misunderstanding and the need to control. It is unhealthy. Jesus, by contrast, was a most powerful person but he wasn’t violent. The energy of Jesus is spirit….So if God is in me, I must allow God to be a force through me. This requires a change of heart from trying to control others. Then the reign of God is at hand.”

The effect of this change of heart is that we realize that we cannot avoid caring about others, especially when they’re in pain. Instead, we must CHOOSE to be in the reign of God and act on it.

Father Crosby suggests that an alternative response to the violence and counter-violence of 9/11 could have been accomplished through conflict resolution—in the same way that any interpersonal relationship would resolve its issues:

* Agree to stop fighting.

* Engage in active listening, i.e., understanding what the other is saying
without interruption.

* Accept the other person.

* Admit your part in what led to the conflict.

* Say you’re sorry.

* Forgive each other.

“When we become aware that we have been abusing our power, we develop a new pattern,” said Father Crosby, intimating that the United States has not always recognized its domineering relationships with other countries. He pointed out that the first Sept. 11 occurred in 1973, when the United States overthrew the democratically-elected Chilean president, Salvador Allende.

“Compassion is the whole goal of the spiritual world. Justice is making the relationship right. When we have justice, we will have peace.”

Father Crosby maintains a website at http://www.michaelcrosby.net

The Death of a Parish

2008-07-07T00:25:00.002-04:00

It’s exciting to build new things like churches. The difficulty comes with having to dismantle them, as many Catholics across the country have had to do.

This summer it happened to my hometown parish, St. Conrad’s, located in Melvindale, a small town outside of Detroit. Despite all efforts, the 210 families could no longer keep the parish going.

St. Conrad’s was one of 16 parishes slated to close in the Archdiocese of Detroit, according to a Spring 2006 strategic plan, which reduced the total number of parishes from 306 to 290. The last plan occurred in 1989 when 30 parishes were closed.

At its peak St. Conrad’s had over 400 families, however, the past few years have seen a decline in numbers because parishioners have died, found a new job, or moved to a new home in the suburbs. For the past three years the parish has had a part-time pastor, which means that the parishioners have pretty much run the parish.

What happened to St. Conrad’s reflects a national trend of demographic shifting, financial difficulties, and the priest shortage. So after 42 years as a faith community, St. Conrad’s held its final Mass.

Actually, I wasn’t going to go to the Mass. After seeing my elementary and middle schools and a college where I worked closed and demolished, I didn’t think I could take another “burial” of an institution that had been a vital part of my life. At the last minute, however, I changed my mind and went. And I’m glad I did because it got me thinking about the significance of closing a parish and its relationship to the changes going on in our world today.

St. Conrad’s meant a lot to me. One day, at a time during my greatest need, I turned to this church and kneeled on the hard, tiled floor praying for deliverance. A couple years later God answered my prayer: I became a Catholic and later joined a religious order, which launched my lifelong career in the human service professions. My sister converted to Catholicism at St. Conrad’s, too, and later was married there. My father never became a Catholic but he was married at the parish and eventually he attended weekly Masses, Bible study classes, and participated in various Christian service programs. The parish had provided him with purpose and friendship.

It may sound corny and trite but when you must let go of something precious, you suddenly realize its place in your life. At this last sad but jubilant Mass, parishioners—past and present—had an opportunity to honor the place St. Conrad’s held in their lives. What I also discovered was that even though I hadn’t been a member of the parish since 1975, I was still quite attached to it.

Attachment to a parish has an uncanny effect. A parish represents something bigger than you are, it has a purpose greater than your own ambitions, and it reaches more people than you could ever possibly touch. It also has an enduring presence, which produces fond memories that make you a part of the parish and the parish a part of you. When you lose your parish, it is like losing a limb!

This enduring presence is easy to take for granted because you believe that your parish will always be there for you. And although you can change parishes, you cannot always replace a faith community as you would a material possession that is lost or worn out.

The families who struggled to keep St. Conrad’s going felt a deep commitment to each other as neighbors and friends in a particular place. They knew they had something special and they didn’t want to change it. However, sometimes change happens to us as circumstances create an untenable situation. In losing their parish, the parishioners at St. Conrad’s had to witness yet another painful change.

For many parishioners this latest change was difficult. Some of them went through the Depression and World War II. Some sent their kids to Vietnam or Iraq. They saw the rise and fall of Detroit, the great industrial capital of the world. Most all of them went through the Vatican II changes.

In truth, the parishioners have been witnessing the dismantling of old structures, which is happening everywhere. It happened in New Orleans when the infrastructure could not protect the city from a devastating hurricane and in Minnesota when an interstate freeway bridge suddenly collapsed. It happened in New York City and Washington, D.C. on 9/11 when terrorists attacked the grand symbols of American economic and military might. It is happening now in California where drought has made the forest so dry that there are now 1,000 fires burning and in Alaska where the permafrost is melting and threatening people’s towns and way of life.

The parishioners’ faith has told them that as human beings we are forever challenged to cope with change and that we must differentiate between changing what we can and accepting that which we cannot change.

Saying good-bye to the parish through the Mass was an excellent way of honoring the life and ministry their small faith community had fostered these past 42 years. I have to believe that God’s grace will carry St. Conrad’s parishioners—and all of us experiencing these traumatic changes—into a new and vital future.

Overlooking the Elephants in the Room

2008-06-16T21:50:00.004-04:00

West Michigan became the scene of an imported brand of Middle Eastern conflict over politics and religion recently when Nonie Darwish, a member of the nonpartisan Young America’s Foundation (YAF) speakers bureau, presented her view of the world at a lecture organized by the College Republicans in my town.

The YAF speakers bureau includes such colorful personalities as Patrick Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Michelle Malkin, Rick Santorum, John Ashcroft, Ward Connerly and Ted Nugent.

After September 11, Darwish, 59, an Egyptian-born author, activist and translator, decided to speak out against her own Islamic culture because she felt it perpetuated hate against the Jews in the Middle East.

“I learned that hate, vengeance and retaliation are important values to protect Islam and Arab honor,” said Darwish, recalling her education as a young girl. “Self-criticism or questioning Arab teachings and leadership was forbidden and could only bring shame, dishonor and violence open those who dared try. Peace was never an option and never mentioned as a virtue.”

In her speech, Darwish also railed against Arabs and radical Islam for causing Israeli-Palestinian tensions and pointed to verses in the Quran that invite Muslim violence against non-Muslims.

Darwish came to the United States 15 years ago. She is the daughter of Lt. Col. Mustafa Hafaz, an assassinated Egyptian guerrilla leader of the fedyadeen, a terrorist group that regularly raided Israel.

In addition to the 30 students who attended the lecture, Darwish drew another 15 - 20 peace activists from the local community who were there to protest her message. At first they were silent but as Darwish continued her 45-minute diatribe, they reacted to her with audible snickers and gasps of disgust.

The Q&A was even more surreal. Darwish ignored the students who were seated in the front half of the assembly room and instead turned her attention to the protesters in the back. She first called on two Pakistani Muslim men who argued with her over the details of Muslim life and religion. Then she called on two peace activists.

The students in the room remained largely silent and puzzled by what was transpiring before their eyes until Darwish finally called on one student who asked something on the order of Rodney King’s plea: “Can’t we all just get along?”

The organizers of the event were noticeably flummoxed by the response of the audience and struggled to know what to do. However, they had admirably adopted a free speech platform and maintained it, especially when two unarmed security guards suddenly appeared to calm down a couple vociferous peace activists who came very short of being thrown out.

After her speech, a small crowd surrounded Darwish to ask more questions, point more fingers and poke more holes in her arguments. The guards, at the prompting of the student organizers, eventually escorted Darwish out.

The evening’s program had become one filled with fiery affect lacking in intellectual content and ending up quite a distance away from the intended forum for “enlightened thinking” the organizers attempted to provide.

An English major might characterize the scene as a post-modern drama complete with many obscure levels of context, irony, paradox and identity politics.

It was sad to see the peace activists forget their mission of nonviolence and react rudely to Darwish. They could have been more effective by simply maintaining a silent demonstration in protest to her message.

Equally troubling is the College Republicans’ reliance on the YAF, which purports to furnish the aspiring conservatives with political savvy and organizational strategy. What it seems to do instead is to divide the world up into liberals and conservatives and to foment antagonism against liberals.

For example, according to the YAF website, the “nonpartisan” group provides conferences, internships and resources to promote the conservative agenda on college campuses and strategies for countering “leftist tactics against your speaker.”

The YAF suggests ways students may “maximize funding from the university and private supporters” who would presumably be against them and their politics. It also has a program that teaches students how to fight “anti-military bias and misinformation” by leftists who “continue to belittle our armed forces and to prevent as many students as possible from participating in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and from speaking with military recruiters.”

The YAF sponsors the “9/11: Never Forget Project,” which it began in 2003 after it discovered that “most college campuses were either completely ignoring the anniversary of the terrorist attacks or scheduling a politically-correct activity instead.”

Ronald Reagan is the group’s standard bearer and his creed is “the centerpiece of the student programs.” The YAF proudly touts its role in the preservation of the president’s Western White House, Rancho del Cielo, as a “living monument to Reagan’s lasting accomplishments.”

Actually, what the student audience’s nonplussed reaction to the event perhaps makes clear as we ramble along in this first decade of the twenty-first century is that arguing about religion and politics has become pointless, especially when we refuse to deal with the “elephants in the room” like $4 per gallon oil, two wars we won’t end and can’t win, global warming, food shortages and price hikes, unprecedented species extinction, sub-prime mortgage failures, crumbling infrastructure, violent weather patterns and destructive earthquakes.

It’s time for all Americans to turn the page on the old politics and to start working on the new challenges we face in our world.

This article appeared in Common Dreams.org on June 10, 2008.

Moving From the Margins to the Mainstream

2008-06-10T01:42:00.002-04:00

Movements for change begin mysteriously at the margins but if they take hold, they can have a big impact on society.

“Things happen. You have to count on it,” said Tom Hayden at a recent lecture sponsored by the Southwest Branch of the ACLU of Michigan.

The veteran activist first witnessed the process of social change while a student at the University of Michigan in 1960. As editor of the Michigan Daily he was covering John F. Kennedy’s visit to campus and discovered that a small group of students got to the presidential candidate about 11 p.m. and handed him a plan for an international peace program.

That group included local activist David MacLeod, who Hayden recognized at the lecture.

At the time Kennedy didn’t know fully what he was signing on to and his advisers were stunned by his spontaneous policymaking. The program turned out to be the Peace Corps.

“It was unexplainable how David got the [plan] into JFK’s hands,” said Hayden who pointed out that “chaotic processes” often accompany movements for change.

A year later Hayden would co-found the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which promoted the 18-year-old right to vote. This idea had first surfaced during World War II but it was the Vietnam War that brought home the point that the nation that felt its young were responsible enough to fight a war should be responsible enough to vote.

“We were relatively marginal but that didn’t matter because we found a cause,” said Hayden. “It was driven into me at the time that all things are possible.”

Although the idea for the Peace Corps literally happened overnight, change usually takes at least a decade, said Hayden, and not all movements achieve their goals. Women’s suffrage took 100 years; ending slavery took 500 years.

The Electoral College seems to be an obvious issue for change, especially since the 2000 election when Al Gore won the popular vote and George W. Bush won the electoral vote. However, there seems to be no political will to eliminate it.

“The Electoral College was one of the dynamic compromises of the Constitution,” said Hayden, adding that the “imperfect document” also follows the movement for change model.

Prior to the Revolution of 1776 the Continental Congress grappled with whether or not to declare its independence from England, a prospect too radical for most colonists. However, taxation without representation eventually tipped a majority of the public toward separation.

In 1787 the framers of the U.S. Constitution incorporated independence as a key theme for the new republic but they could not end slavery or extend suffrage beyond white, male property owners. Such radical ideas would have split the movement for nationhood.

“Each generation claims the promise, ideals and aspirations of the founders and they become a movement,” said Hayden. “This is how social change works and it’s an important concept for professors to discuss and teach.”

Hayden wasn’t sure what America’s next great social movement would be but he predicted that it will come out of the “Obama generation.”

Obama came from the margins, too, Hayden noted. No one saw him coming anymore than they did Kennedy. And like Kennedy, Obama may end up articulating a new vision for the country based on the next generation’s desire for change.

“They have a self-confidence that their moment has come,” said Hayden of today’s young. They don’t want to settle for the way things are or for the way they were achieved in the 60s.”

Hayden’s own 34-year-old son has had to convince his father of this break from the past.

“You have to go to Obama’s rallies to see this or you’ll miss it, too,” said Hayden. “There is an unexpected social movement that has not occurred since 1968.”

Hayden’s eight-year-old son, who is African-American, is also swept up in the “turbulence” of change. Interestingly, he isn’t moved by race in this presidential election as much as he is by the environment. He aspires to be a marine biologist to do something about it.

The former state legislator and sociologist by profession illustrated that social change occurs once activists achieve 25 to 30 percent support from mainstream public opinion. When they reach 40 percent, the idea becomes a “norm.” Politicians then pass a law to institute the change, although it is far more compromised from its radical origins.

Nevertheless, the existing order co-opts the movement for change, said Hayden, because grassroots activists usually disperse once they achieve their goal, much like the Iraq War peace movement has.

The existing order also seeks to erase the memory of the movement or to claim it as its own through commemorations on postage stamps or the naming of parks, buildings, boulevards and holidays.

“This was the same government that jailed radical reformers [like Martin Luther King, Jr.,]” said Hayden.

The activist, writer and politician is a leading voice for withdrawal from Iraq and last year published Ending the War in Iraq. He spoke about that prospect somberly.

“Ending the Vietnam War took 12 years of my life,” said Hayden. “So far, the Iraq War has been going on for five years — 15 if you count Gulf War I.”

Hayden said that even with a Democratic win, the plan is to leave tens of thousands of troop advisers in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton Study Group also advocated withdrawing all but 20,000 troops in order to stabilize the country.

“If we can’t win with 150,000 troops, how can 30,000 finish the job?” he asked.

Hayden also pointed out that this war has been designed with the Vietnam War in mind. For example, there is no draft and the number of dead soldiers is minimal in comparison. There is also a great effort to subdue the protests, which accounts for the media’s sketchy coverage of the peace movement.

“Fighting tolerant warmakers is harder than fighting those who beat you up,” said Hayden, who was thrashed and jailed during the 60s protests. The Internet generates much more information to a broader audience but it creates much less face-to-face interaction and fervor.

Hayden urged peace activists to help end the war in Iraq with the following suggestions:

* Spend time with those who disagree with you and make alliances.
* Work with anti-war people in the armed forces and let them know their rights.
* Show up at community colleges and conduct debates on military recruitment.
* Consult http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home to find out and report how the cost of war is diverting funds from your community.
* Make alliances with those hurt by war’s budget (i.e., senior citizens, veterans who need medical care, educators).

Hayden also said that any movement for change can happen by focusing on one’s own experience. Working for energy efficiency on college campuses is a good example of what students can do.

“Start with things that are achievable and reach out to the undecided population,” he advised. “Look for friends on the faculty but focus on your student friends.”

Because activism often competes with students’ time for study and a job, Hayden recommended that students combine their activist interests with service learning opportunities, work-study projects and research papers.

Hayden’s Web site provides information about his other causes, which include erasing sweatshops, saving the environment and reforming politics through greater citizen participation.

This article appeared in Common Dreams on June 2, 2008.

Memorial Day 2008

2008-05-24T23:14:00.006-04:00

The following accounts are interviews I had with Vietnam War veterans, men of my generation. They reveal examples about the meaning of war and military service to veterans who have risked and who are risking their lives for our country.

Roger – USMC 1969-71

“Being a Marine is like being a member of a brotherhood,” said Roger, who works at the VA hospital in Battle Creek, Mich. Among the many tattoos on his arm is the Marine motto: “Retreat is not an option.”

“If you join the Marines you know it’s the toughest group in the military and that a lot of responsibility is heaped on to Marines, more than in the other services. You honor the flag, the president and never dishonor yourself or your mother. You know that the fellow next to you will take a bullet for you.”

“In the Marines you carry its values with you for the rest of your life, values like honesty, helping others, always being faithful to other Marines, taking care of your own….It’s a brotherhood.”

“Nobody wants to take a life but if the enemy shoots at you and you refuse to shoot back, what do you think is going to happen?”

“You won’t find veterans that believe in war, but you’ll never find a vet who doesn’t believe in his country.”

Roger suddenly realized at the beginning of the Iraq War that “our babies were fighting in a war.” He suddenly started to tear up. When he enlisted in the Marines in 1969, he was a baby, too.

“I guess my mother was really worried. She had four sons in the service at that time.”

Although he stayed in the United States during his service, when he returned from duty his reception was less than what he expected.

“I got spit at and had drinks thrown at me in bars because I was a military man.”

Nevertheless, throughout all these years Roger has remained firm of purpose regarding the Vietnam War: he and his fellow Marines did their duty. Yet, he showed some sympathy and understanding for those who treated him and his comrades so badly:

“They were just taking it out on us because we were in the military.”

Art – USMC 1968-70

“When you’re 18 you think war is a big adventure,” said Art who enlisted in the Corps right out of high school because he had no other direction in life and “didn’t know any better.” After he finished his tour, he got a job at the U.S. Post Office where he’s worked ever since.

“When you get there [in Vietnam], you find out they are shooting real bullets.”

Art said he started questioning the idea of war in the spring of 1969 when he first went into combat. His life was forever changed.

He arrived in Vietnam just after the Tet Offensive and was assigned to a clean-up maneuver in the northern-most province of South Vietnam near Da Nang. He encountered many small skirmishes, but the happy-go-lucky extrovert said he soon adopted a cynical outlook on life.

“A certain feeling overcame me when people started shooting at me. It put me in a reflective mode. I began to lose my life and ask about the nature of our existence in this world.

Art doesn’t claim to be a spiritual or religious man, at least not in organized religion, but when he was in intense combat he had a “out-of-body experience.” As he found himself elevated above the battle below, he realized he could have died there.

“I came to appreciate the gift of life that God gives us and realize that it’s a shame that we squander it in conflicts.”

Art is especially concerned about the psychological damage done to young men in war and how it affects everyone around them: their family, spouse, kids and co-workers. He knows Vietnam vets who have struggled with lifetime repercussions because of that war.

“Why should we send the young in harm’s way? They have no sense of risk and they’re not old enough to reflect on the value of the life they have been given. They think they will either be heroes or dead men, but then there’s a gray area they don’t think about: what if they get wounded?”

Vietnam War statistics show that 58,226 soldiers were killed or classified as missing in action and 153,303 were wounded.

“I’m not sure about the spiritual existence after this life, so I appreciate the life I have here and now. I savor the moments. It makes war and killing so senseless.”

George – U.S. Navy 1967-69

George had never visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. so before the January 2003 peace march began, he and I decided to spend some time there.

On that cold, 20-degree day, we walked in silence to the memorial. As we neared the deep gouge in the earth, I felt an ache in the pit of my stomach. This was our generation’s war. It was George’s war.

We walked a few yards into the memorial and looked at the names engraved on the shiny, black granite wall. Even in his silence it was obvious George was deeply touched.

We continued about a quarter into the walkway until George stopped. He had a “peace on earth” sign with him and we took photos of each other holding it. Then he wanted to leave.

As we left the walkway a solitary security guard suddenly appeared near the entrance and told us that signs were prohibited at the memorial.

“Peace on earth,” the guard said as he read our sign out loud. “What an idea.”

As George rolled up the sign and put it under his arm, the guard saw us fumbling to capture the meaning of his words.

“You don’t think I’m for war, do you?” he snapped.

The guard probably saw hundreds of people a day at the memorial. As the prospect of a new war loomed, just 30 years after this one, he had pulled duty at the stark, black wall with the 58,000 names etched on it.

George and I walked on to the huge white “temple” nearby, the Lincoln Memorial. We climbed the smooth marble steps and gazed at the towering sculpture of the somber president who oversaw a divided nation, which resulted in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers, according to some estimates. Now, nearly 150 years later, we were a divided nation once again on the brink of war, only this time the war would be fought in a faraway land.

George and I walked a short distance to the Korean War Memorial. It commemorated our fathers’ war. (The memorial of their other war that had occurred seven years earlier was in the process of being built further down the mall.)

The memorial’s triangular shape and its position on the mall opposite the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials, called to mind the demands that war makes on our young. The faces of the immobile metal figures are grim. Their hunched stance caused by the weight of their equipment and the weariness of war contradicts the men’s otherwise youthful strength and presumed optimism in the future.

On this Memorial Day, let us honor our dead by asking why we are willing to sacrifice our young for the “just” causes of the old? Let us likewise seek to devise alternative ways of settling our conflicts without going to war.

Architect for Alternative Futures

2008-05-19T07:10:00.008-04:00

David Macleod is a tall, lanky, graying red-haired man, who walks with a slight hunch and talks with a gentle, low resonant voice. He has spent a lifetime assiduously informing himself about the technical aspects of how wars are waged and how peace can solve conflict.

While some people regard David a hopeless idealist, others find him a steadfast advocate for peace. One of David’s proudest achievements was his suggestion that the government institute an international peace program. This idea turned out to be the Peace Corps, which John F. Kennedy announced in his 1960 presidential bid on the steps of the Student Union at the University of Michigan where David was a student.

The 71-year-old former professor turned handyman is currently studying how the Bush administration distorts scientific data in order to promote its agenda. He is also writing a book about the history of peace activism in Kalamazoo.

I first met David in 1985 at Nazareth College, a small, private, liberal arts college located in southwestern Michigan. He taught geography there as a part-time professor, one of many jobs he had stitched together to make a full-time living. He seemed reserved and a little eccentric to me at the time, but I didn’t really know him or understand his projects. Talking with him today about his tireless efforts for peace over the past 58 years sheds new light on him and the way an individual’s call to be a peacemaker is often a lonely, yet enduring, vocation.

In 1950 at age 13 David attended the Boy Scout Jamboree held in Washington, D.C. On the night before the event, he and a group of boys saw the movie, “Forgotten Men.” The film featured a history of World War I and how it led to World War II.

“I was so appalled, horrified and upset that night, I couldn’t sleep,” said David. When he finally got some sleep he awoke from a nightmare quite shaken with the sun shining in his eyes. It took him awhile to adjust to reality. He had just dreamed that the atomic bomb hit Washington and that he was trying to escape his hotel that was in flames.

After breakfast, David attended the Jamboree with 40,000 other boys from around the world. The event proved to be a moving and influential experience for him as well. “We all got along with one another,” recalled David. “Somehow, I thought back then, that we should all be able to avoid what the world was coming up against with war and nuclear weapons.” Ironically, on the same day, North Korea invaded South Korea (June 24, 1950). “It was only five years after World War II and we were right back into war again,” said David mournfully. It was on that day, however, that he made a lifelong commitment to peace.

During the late 1970s David and his wife, Mary, returned to Kalamazoo. On the day after they arrived, the Fetzer Institute held a peace conference that featured Anwar Saddat, prime minister of Egypt; Norman Cousins, editor of the Atlantic Monthly; and Robert Mueller, former U.N. undersecretary general and president emeritus of the University for Peace in Costa Rica. At the conference Mueller encouraged the audience to consider Kalamazoo an ideal place to establish a world center for peace that would offer conferences and serve as a think tank toward specific actions for peace. Besides, Mueller said, Kalamazoo’s odd name would attract the necessary attention for the cause.

“I was delighted to hear others reflect what I thought,” said David who never forgot what Mueller said. Ever since David has worked hard to make that vision a reality. For example, David taught a course in peace education at Western Michigan University and wrote a pamphlet to accompany the class entitled “World Peace: A Positive Approach.” Other professors across the country adopted it for their curriculum. In the pamphlet he advocates a five-point positive approach to peace that includes the establishment of idealistic but necessary beginnings:

· a code of world law

· a democratic world government

· a program of peace education and world citizenship

· a way for people to become world citizens

· a military conversion program, which adapts systems, hardware and
personnel to peaceful uses.

But David doesn’t just think up ideas, he works to implement them. For example, he developed a plan for a military-base conversion program in Michigan and, in 1976, came close to convincing the state to convert Kinchloe Air Force Base near Sault Ste. Marie into a global disaster relief project. The state seriously considered his plan until then-Governor William Milliken suddenly changed course and transformed the base into a state prison instead.

David also wanted to see the Fort Custer Army Base in Battle Creek converted into a world agricultural center. He submitted a proposal but this one, too, fell short of adoption. Part of the base did become an industrial park that welcomed several international manufacturing companies including Japan’s giant auto supplier, Denso.

In 1990 when Nazareth College announced it would close its doors, David proposed that the campus become a world peace education center, but authorities nixed that idea, too. Despite these setbacks, David has never given up on his vision for world peace. Actually, even today especially since 9/11, David still can’t fathom any reason why the world can’t be peaceful any more than he could when he was a boy scout at age 13.

“We have computer networks that allow us to speak to each other. We have an awareness that the violence of modern weapons could have untold destruction of the whole world,” said David. As an emergency preparedness coordinator for Kalamazoo Township, David also knows the tandem effects of nuclear weapons, that is, if one goes off, a whole system trips off a response for several other bombs to go off as well. “The first thing we should do about this nuclear weapons system is shut it all down,” said David.

Still, despite his efforts and his optimism that peace is possible, David said he is quite discouraged with what the Bush administration has done with Iraq. He has even become a full-fledged pacifist as a result, which surprises even him.

“I’ve found that various methods of violence are degrading to the human spirit and counter-productive,” said David who defines the scope of violence as anything from interpersonal relationships to global military conflicts.

“The Bush administration seems determined to make Iraq a U.S. colony, when the country has the potential of being an example of what can be done globally,” David said referring to the Iraqi Governing Council that wrote a democratic constitution. However, he maintains that Iraq presented no credible threat to the United States in the first place, at least, not enough to warrant going to war. He also questions why the administration saw such an immediacy to war with Iraq when it didn’t see one with the more volatile North Korea—which has nuclear weapons.

“The rule is that if we threaten them with the bomb, they’ll break down. However, North Korea’s one weapon is enough to create a credible threat to us,” said David. Consequently, David has made a stand for peace at the community peace vigils since fall 2002 and shows no signs of quitting.

To David, today’s geopolitical situation is as dangerous as it was in 1950. Back then he thought we were on the verge of World War III when he heard General Douglas MacArthur declare he wanted to use nuclear weapons to stave off the North Koreans.

“I felt an urgency then and I still do now,” said David. “I feel an urgency to do something.”

Five Years Later and Still No Mission Accomplished

2008-05-01T22:16:00.004-04:00

Five years ago today George W. Bush, in flight suit regalia, flew onto the deck of the U.S.S. Lincoln to let America know that we won the war in Iraq.

His speech with the Navy’s accompanying pomp and circumstance made the peace activists look like wimpy losers once again. The dangers of the war they feared weren’t realized—not even close. The call for cooler heads and world peace as a strategy has been shelved once again.

And boy, didn’t Bush look great in that flight suit!

The jubilation, however, wouldn’t last—either for the Americans or the Iraqis. Soon we saw terrible images of destruction. Fire. Burning jeeps. Black, black smoke. Rubble everywhere. Iraqi men in the streets pounding their chests. Iraqi women and children sitting on the ground crying.

However, it was that eerie pattern of death that developed where an American Marine or a soldier was killed every day. People suspected an organized effort, and Al Queda was the likely culprit. After all, Americans had been trained to the shuttering reminder that terrorism could strike at any time in any place in any way on anyone.

That meant that we were all at risk at home and abroad—and one billion Muslims and Arabs from 22 countries in the Middle East were deemed responsible. Nevertheless, that drip, drip, drip effect of death was unsettling.

“Peace protestors,” as they were called, complained that the declarations of victory had been premature. War supporters countered that war requires sacrifices: some people get hurt; some people get killed. They questioned the peace activists’ patriotism and even accused them of treason.

Fallen troops’ photos appeared in the newspaper with rather lengthy obituaries. The PBS Newshour ended each broadcast with a silent display of photos and names of the dead. Each day Yahoo News announced a new death and tallied the total number of deaths. Now the news from Iraq is buried deep within the paper.

Oddly enough, our military commanders who had feared urban warfare saw it come to pass—and in the stifling heat of the desert. Our troops were exposed to extreme danger every time they patrolled the neighborhoods or drove their trucks on the IED-littered highways. When the killings increased, our troops had to be less trusting of the people they were presumably protecting, which included every man, woman and child.

Then there were the troop rotations and the stop-loss system that would beckon soldiers and Marines to return to Iraq to fight two, three and four tours of duty. New traumas cropped up: PTSD soldiers, wounded soldiers, divorced soldiers, suicidal soldiers.

And those poor National Guard reservists who thought they had signed up to be stateside “weekend warriors.” Suddenly they found themselves stuck in the desert far from home and under fire.

Commander-in-Chief Bush was accused of never attending a soldier’s funeral. He still hasn’t.

As the months rolled into years and the death tolls accumulated, some terrible things happened at home. Some people turned off the war by going into denial and avoiding the news.

Others went into depression because they feared a Bush re-election in 2004 and/or an escalation to more war.

A few Bush supporters got ugly and blamed peace activists for inhibiting progress on the war.

Arabs and Muslims became the source of America’s problems.

Conspiracy theorists surfaced with stories about government subversion during 9/11. (In 2006, polls would show that six out of 10 Americans believed Bush didn’t take the necessary precautions to avoid 9/11. Nine out of 10 soldiers believed Saddam was involved with 9/11.) Worst of all, Democrats who took the majority in both houses on the promise to end the war, are failing on their promise.

Almost immediately people started comparing this war to the Vietnam “quagmire” and some fretted that “We’ll never get out.” Others dreaded a return of the “draft.”

That’s when it became clear that many people were still haunted by the ghosts of 30 years before. Presidential candidate Kerry in 2006 and now McCain in 2008 are recalling their war days in Vietnam as proof that they should be elected commander-in-chief.

Other people, young people, those most at risk at being drafted, tried to deal with the war by ignoring it. Their parents silently held their breaths at the prospect of turning over their son or daughter to the harsh and never-ending conflicts of the Middle East.

Now, five years later our troops are still in Iraq and the death and destruction continues, often in more grisly ways like Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, the displacement of four million and the deaths of one million Iraqis. The great hope that our soldiers would return home after a civilian government took over Iraq on June 30, 2004 vanished.

Now, five years later, it doesn’t look as though the United States will ever get out of Iraq. Worse yet, the Bush administration seems to want to pick a fight with Iran.

Will the next president learn anything from this war?

Will the next president be as insensitive to those hurt in the war as Bush has been?

Real Women Don't Throw Bombs

2008-04-27T06:15:00.018-04:00

After four months of presidential primaries, what a refreshing contrast to see a woman speak forthrightly about justice and peace—especially at a time when the United States is indulged in saber-rattling with Iran.

Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer, writer, teacher and former judge recently stood up to an American audience, looked them in the eye and proclaimed: “Never have the problems of any country been solved through war.” (She came to Kalamazoo last week to participate in PeaceJam, an international peacemaking education program for youth.)

Ebadi won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote democracy and human rights, especially those of women and children in Iran. She was the first Muslim woman and the first Iranian to receive the award.

During the same week, Hillary Clinton, a lawyer, graduate of the elite institutions of Wellesley College and Yale Law School and former First Lady, said that the U.S. could “obliterate Iran” if it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. She is running for president and if she wins, she would be the first woman president in U.S. history.

Ebadi’s memoir, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, was banned in Iran because it criticizes the Islamic Republic government for its murder of Iranian intellectuals and dissidents, imposition of theocratic controls over women and restriction of human rights. Her book, published in the USA, has been interpreted in several languages and distributed all over the world.

Clinton, who has promoted women and children’s rights most of her professional life, wrote the book, It Takes a Village. Although it was mocked by her political opponents and right-wing info-tainment media hosts, the book made the New York Times Bestseller List in 1996 and a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997.

Ebadi believes that the strength of a chain lies in its smallest piece, therefore, it is essential that the strong protect the weak and most marginal people of society. Children are the most vulnerable because they are unable to protect themselves. She established the Iranian Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child as well as the Center for the Defense of Human Rights. She also drafted the original text of a law against physical abuse of children that was passed in 2002.

Clinton served as chairperson for the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) from 1986 to 1992. However, she failed to influence her husband when he signed the August 1996 welfare reform bill a.k.a. “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.” It was seen as a betrayal of poor women and children in order to ensure Bill Clinton’s re-election that fall. Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the CDF and close friend of Hillary, called the law an “abomination.”

Ebadi believes that the education of children should be a country’s greatest investment, not the military. She recognizes that armies drain resources from the populace in order to support military ventures. Iran, which is wealthy through its abundant natural resources, continues to devote much of its treasury to the military while children from poor families must help support them by leaving school to sell flowers or beg.

Ebadi calls on her government, and governments all over the world, to decrease their military budgets by 10 percent and to dedicate that money to education. She also advises a ban on toys and computer games that promote violence and insists that children learn how to work for peaceful coexistence.

Clinton voted for the October 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to take pre-emptive military action in Iraq and doesn’t regret it. She has consistently voted for war funding, which now amounts to nearly $600 billion through FY 2008. So far, this military venture has resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Americans and one million Iraqis and the displacement of 4.5 million Iraqis from their homes.

Ebadi believes that a military attack on Iran would worsen what’s left of its tattered democracy. The government would only respond by using national security as an excuse to suppress more of the people’s human rights. Furthermore, she claims a U.S. attack would create further chaos in the region.

Clinton doesn’t offer any noticeable change from Bush’s foreign policy, which advocates U.S. domination in the Middle East. She has shied away from discussing the war in the presidential campaign as much as possible.

Ebadi knows the limitations of government. After serving as the first woman judge in Iran (1975-79) as head of the city court of Tehran at age 23, she lost her position because the Islamic Republic government deemed women incompetent to serve as judges.

Not willing to let a few mullahs to stop her, Ebadi continued to defend women and political dissidents. She also distributed evidence implicating government officials in the murders of students at the University of Tehran in 1999, which resulted in her imprisonment in 2000 and eventual disbarment. Through all of this she still teaches law at the University of Tehran and remains a wife and mother of two grown daughters.

Since she won the Peace Prize, Iranian authorities have tried three times to build a case against her. Currently, Ebadi is accused of having taken money from the U.S. to give to Akbar Ganji, an international award-winning journalist who calls for a replacement of Iran's theocratic system with “a secular democracy^.” She regularly receives death threats for working against Islam and Iran.

As a young lawyer Clinton worked with the House Judiciary Committee’s Watergate investigation. When her husband was governor of Arkansas, she promoted education reform. When her husband was president, she tried to advance universal health care. She ran for senator of New York and won twice.

Clinton has endured marital infidelity, public embarrassment, right-wing assaults on her character, and some losses in the presidential primaries. She is constantly asked the first question in the presidential debates. However, no matter what is dished out to her, she always gets up, brushes herself off, re-makes her image and presses onward. Through all of this, she remains a good mother and a faithful wife.

So how does each woman continue in the maelstrom of political and ideological crossfire?

Ebadi describes herself as stubborn. Others perceive her as courageous, tough, and possessing a sense of humor. However, there is no mistaking her seriousness of purpose or her willingness to put herself on the line to advocate for those who are unjustly persecuted by the powerful.

Clinton survives the hits by hitting back, maintaining her position, and resolving to win. Principle sometimes fails her in the process perhaps because she believes she has something to offer the world so the ends justify the means. Consequently, she uses race baiting, social class slurs and her love of guns and God to defeat her opponents. Party unity apparently means nothing to her and she would rather bludgeon her primary opponents and risk losing the general election than give up the possibility of the presidency, an office she deems she is entitled.

While I would like to see a woman president in my lifetime, I want a woman whose leadership offers just and peaceful solutions for resolving conflict rather than one who would imitate the aggressive and violent tactics of men.

Maybe Americans could swap Clinton for Ebadi.

The Way to Peace Can Be Paved With Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Negotiation

2008-04-18T18:23:00.007-04:00

Peace activists are often accused of being naïve dreamers when it comes to dealing with conflict or dangerous enemies.

So what is the alternative? Usually it’s to fight fire with fire (i.e., revenge and retaliation).

The very nature of peacemaking, however, is not to fight but rather to confront “the opponent” with intelligence, craftiness, humor and a thirst for justice. We have some splendid examples of this approach in Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, just to name a few. Skeptics recoil and sputter that such people were exceptions.

However, let’s not forget that these “peace heroes” inspired ordinary people to follow them and choose to become part of a movement for change.

Skeptics also claim that the American “sheeple” cannot be moved because they are asleep, unaware, too numb and too busy to care about injustices. They also say it is impossible to fight against the awesome power of Corporate America, Big Government and other power brokers.

OK, then maybe that’s a cue for peace activists’ next challenge: How can we inspire others so deeply that they choose to form a movement for change from violence and war to peace; from hatred to love; from revenge and retaliation to forgiveness and reconciliation; from an obstinate refusal to communicate to negotiation?

Let’s look at some recent examples of the impossible.

The Amish

On October 2, 2006, ten Amish girls were gunned down in a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.

A community known for its gentleness, religious faith and the rejection of modern technological society had been severely violated. However, within six hours of the shooting, Amish leaders reached out to family members of the killer to let them know that they forgave him and still regarded them as part of the community.

The typical Amish attitude about forgiveness is: “We have to forgive others so that God will forgive us.” They formed this outlook on life 300 years ago when their ancestors, the Anabaptists, were persecuted and tortured by Catholic and Protestant religious authorities who objected to their belief in a second baptism. And even as they were burning at the stake, those same Anabaptist martyrs forgave their persecutors, just as Jesus did to his persecutors during his crucifixion 2,000 years before.

The Amish practice of humility, submission and patience “provides them with an enormous capacity to absorb adversity, forgo revenge and carry on-gracefully,” say the authors of Amish Grace, a book about the Nickel Mines community’s response to this terrible tragedy. It was forgiveness that opened everyone to grace and everyone and everything was suddenly changed.

South Africa

April 27, 1994, marked the day apartheid ended and all of South Africa voted. Nelson Mandela, who had been released from prison after 27 years with 18 in solitary confinement, was elected South Africa’s first black president.

Mandela’s victory became even more incredible when he called on the post-apartheid government’s efforts to create peace and equality among the races. He did this by getting the new government to pass a general amnesty toward those who were guilty of the crimes and atrocities of apartheid as long as they made a full disclosure of all the facts of their activities.

The victims of apartheid would likewise waive their right to sue for compensation and instead accept reparations. Reparations, then, became a symbolic gesture of the nation that bore the victims’ pain and trauma. Mandela’s underlying assumption was that peace in South Africa could only be won when the people admitted that evil was present in everyone.

“We sat down and negotiated with our former enemies,” said Bishop Desmond Tutu, presidential appointee of the Truth and Reconciliation Committees, the key instrument in healing the wounds of apartheid. “We forgot the past, looked for the best in everyone, and came to terms with the ghastly things done by both sides.”

Tutu illustrated how this worked by citing an “incredibly moving” inter-faith service he attended in Pretoria.

Survivors who had endured the killing of 11 people in their community held hands with the white police officer who had given the order to kill their family and friends years before.

The officer had applied and was granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but he also was required to make a public show of regret for his actions by asking the community to forgive him of his deeds. At first, the community was hostile toward him and disbelieved his repentance, but he pressed them to move beyond the past.

“In that moment, barriers toppled,” said Tutu, “and the community forgave him.”

“We don’t know how it can happen, but it happened. Former enemies were able to find one another in magnanimity, even after they experienced untold suffering. They all had good reasons for revenge, but by discovering their own capacities for evil as part of the whole picture of themselves, they were able to forgive and forget.”

Burundi

Burundi is a geographically-isolated country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa with a population of 6 million, down considerably after four decades of civil war, genocide, displacement and an epidemic of HIV affecting nearly four percent of the adult population.

Roughly 85 percent of the population is of the marginalized Hutu ethnic origin while most of the minority is the politically dominant Tutsi.

The coffee-based economy (78 percent of its export trade) make it the lowest GDP per capita in the world at US$90 compared to $43,594 in the United States.

It’s no wonder that Burundi was recently declared the country with the lowest “satisfaction with life“. Howard Wolpe, currently director of the Africa Program for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former seven-term U.S. congressman, had been working with Burundi for 10 years including five years as presidential special envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region. After getting the go-ahead from the World Bank, Wolpe instituted the Burundi Leadership Training Program (BLTP), which aimed to develop the leaders’ communication and negotiation skills needed to guide Burundi’s recovery and transition to democracy.

Wolpe went beyond conventional diplomacy, which is usually aimed at obtaining a “quick acceptance” to agreements hammered out by lawyers. The missing element in that process is to take into consideration the personalities of the leaders who harbored decades of fear, mistrust and suspicion.

According to the Wilson Center Web site, the BLTP, “seeks to enable leaders from belligerent parties to address four challenges that are key to the achievement of a durable peace: (1) shifting key leaders from a zero-sum mindset to one that recognizes interdependence and the importance of collaboration; (2) rebuilding the trust and relationships among key leaders that have been fractured by conflict; (3) strengthening their communication and negotiation skills; and (4) rebuilding a consensus on how power should be organized and decisions made.”

The Burundi Program has been so successful that Wolpe has been invited to work with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and most recently, East Timor.

For those of us who want change we need to remember that just because our leadership does not possess the qualities of forgiveness, reconciliation and negotiation, does not mean that “we the people” can’t. And if we really believe in democratic governance, then it is incumbent on us to initiate and “be the change” in order to show our leaders the way.

Forgiveness, reconciliation and negotiation are not easy. However, they are essential if we are to move beyond our present divisions, hatreds, violence and war both at home and abroad.

Peace activists, in particular, can make a difference everyday to serve as bridges in our local communities so that the spirit of forgiveness, reconciliation and negotiation can spread throughout our country and the world.

This article appeared on Common Dreams on Friday, April 18, 2008.

What the Peace Movement Has Wrought and Opportunities for the Future

2008-04-09T06:58:00.006-04:00

Millions of peace activists throughout the United States and the world were unable to prevent the Iraq War from starting and likewise, have been unsuccessful in stopping it. Some might say that the peace movement has been a failure.

However, something has changed among peace activists over these past five years of war. They focus less on George W. Bush and more on expanding the peace agenda through good works and advocacy.

For example, in my town last week peace activists held yet another night of fun and entertainment. This time it was a fundraiser for playground equipment for the newly-established Catholic Worker House whose focus is on poor neighborhood children.

A few weeks before an improv troupe put on a fundraiser for our district’s Department of Peace (www.thepeacealliance.org) and the local peace group.

One of our group’s latest projects is Iraqi Health Now, which collects medicines and medical supplies to send them to Iraq where doctors need gauze, blood bags antibiotics and syringes. They sent their first box of supplies in December 2006. Last month they sent two semi-trucks full of medicine, supplies, toys and food. This local initiative is now part of Healing the Children.

Peace activists across the nation have also been circulating petitions to support Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s bill to establish a U.S. Department of Peace, which calls for providing practical, nonviolent solutions to the problems of domestic and international conflict.

Global warming, energy conservation and the local food movement have also captured the imaginations and volunteer hours of more and more activists.

Of course, peace activists continue to hold weekly street demonstrations as well as observances for the war’s fifth anniversary and the death of 4,000th American soldier. Many activists still do these things because they wish to witness for peace, stand up for victims of war, and challenge the government’s war policies. They also want their fellow citizens to know there IS and continues to be opposition to the war, especially since the mainstream media tend to shy away from covering peace and justice issues.

If horn honking at public demonstrations is a measure of support for peace, then activists have noticed fewer nasty remarks, scowls and bird flipping salutes. Nevertheless, those people who changed their minds about the war haven’t visibly joined the peace movement. Even the numbers of peace activists attending the demonstrations and activities have dwindled considerably.

Instead, local peace groups seem to nurture a “remnant crowd” that has consistently spoken out against war and injustice over the past 40 years. They have created a loving and open community, which allows them to keep the peace and justice agenda alive among themselves and among local citizens.

Unfortunately, neither African Americans nor Hispanics have showed up at peace demonstrations, at least in my town. Muslims and Arabs come out occasionally, but mostly for special events. Young people are barely involved and some college students even admit they don’t know a war is going on! (Actually, I find young people are more focused on the environmental movement.)

In other words, the peace activists have been largely composed of white, middle-aged, middle-class people. (In my research, the same types of people comprised the pro-war contingent.)

Fortunately, peace groups’ demonstrations, events, letters to the editor, visits to congressional representatives give the peace agenda a PUBLIC face and these efforts have surely contributed to declining support for the war.

In 2003 before the war began, 43 percent of Americans were against the war compared to 66 percent last month, according to CNN opinion poll. That’s real progress for peace.

However, Scott Ritter in his 2006 book, Target Iran, articulated another reason for the rise in anti-war sentiment. The former Marine Corps intelligence officer and U.N. weapons inspector claims that Americans like to win wars so when it looks like we’re losing, we also lose interest in the war.

This sentiment may have influenced the 2006 election when voters kicked out Republicans who supported the war and took over the majority in both the U.S. House and Senate. In February 2007 negative perceptions of the war were at 67 percent.

However, a year later the momentum changed. A February 2008 Pew Research Center poll found an even split (48-48) among Americans who believe the military effort in Iraq is going well and those who don’t. Obviously, the administration that sold this unjust, immoral, unnecessary war is now doing another PR job on Americans by touting the success of the surge.

Unfortunately, they are believing it. And it’s no wonder. These days there is precious little mention of the war in the mainstream media and certainly nothing on the death and displacement of Iraqis or the destruction of their country.

During the presidential primaries, candidates largely skirted the subject.

Concerns about the wobbling economy and dire mortgage crisis have superseded concerns about the war even though half a trillion dollars have been sunk into this fiasco.

One other difficult development peace activists have been unable to prevent is the increasingly negative perception of Muslims. The Progressive (February 2008) reported on the dastardly ways Republican presidential candidates tried to capitalize on Americans’ fears of Muslims by associating them with terrorism.

Likewise, films like Stop Loss illustrate that we are fomenting dangerous prejudicial feelings in our soldiers who fight in the Middle East. This stuff will spread as frustration over the endless war and the sinking economy increases.

Finally, if the peace movement has one glaring failing, it is in its relationship to the U.S. military. That work seems to have been taken up by military families and Bush supporters in the form of sending care packages and participating in send-off and welcome home ceremonies.

However, peace activists have a real opportunity here to demonstrate that peacemaking is about reconciliation. Returning soldiers need to be reunited with the community as full and participating citizens, says war psychologist Ed Tick in his book War and the Soul.

Tick, who has been working with Vietnam veterans with PTSD since 1978 and is now working with Iraq and Afghanistan War vets, says that soldiers must be forgiven for the acts they have committed on behalf of their nation. Who better than peace activists can do that!

Reconciliation with our Republican neighbors is yet another opportunity for peace activists in order to heal the divisions of our country after this disaster of an administration leaves office. I’m finding that more and more Republicans are expressing their painful embarrassment, utter dismay and sorrowful disorientation at having lost their party to the Bush gang.

So bemoaning and denigrating Bush (especially after he’s gone) does little for the real work ahead of us including environmental degradation, global warming, universal health care, housing, restoration of the public domain, post-carbon energy alternatives, education, etc.

Hope and integrity are qualities that characterize peace activists even though many Americans consider these qualities naïve. Let’s show them we CAN make a difference!

This article appeared on Common Dreams on Tuesday, April 8, 2008.

Five Years of War for What?

2008-03-26T15:25:00.004-04:00

I didn’t watch George W. Bush declare war on Iraq that dark and cold night in March. I had prayed for weeks that war would be averted and up until the week before I believed that it would. The “inevitable,” as Bush called it, came when he gave the signal to let the bombs fall on March 19, 2003. Once more, I had to escape my denial of the thing.

The president had made up his mind to go to war and so we went to war.

I sat alone that night imagining the scene at the borders of Iraq where soldiers had been gathering for months and waiting for the action to begin. They kept themselves busy by exercising, readying the equipment, cleaning their weapons, and contending with the swirling sands and howling winds of the desolate, treeless terrain. Sand everywhere and in everything: shoes, clothes, gear, machinery. Mouthfuls of it in their food, in their sleepy snores, and constantly in their eyes and ears.

We were told that Iraq during the summer months would be unbearably hot so our war planners wanted to get on with the war, win it, and bring the soldiers home just as they did in 1991. Back then, coalition forces of 660,000 had successfully pushed Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait in 100 hours. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers surrendered with hardly a fight. Casualties were minimal and our troops returned as heroes and victors.

This time, although we were practically running this war alone, we were still the strongest firepower the world had ever seen. We had the most up-to-date technology and the most disciplined troops. Why shouldn’t we have a repeat performance of the Persian Gulf War?

For months Bush had appeared on TV every night talking about “the evil one” and about how determined he was to rid the world of “the dictator” and his weapons of mass destruction. Bush also wanted to avenge his father’s attempted assassin and garner payback for the dastardly acts of terrorism on September 11.

Polls showed that most Americans believed Bush’s charges. They were convinced and impatient that we should just get on with the war and settle the score.

I was among the 43 percent of Americans horrified by all this bloodlust, especially since the administration said that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and might use them on our troops. Fear of this happening gripped me as I contemplated thousands of our soldiers breathing in the toxins and dropping dead as they crossed the border into Iraq.

We were also told to expect the appearance of the renowned and fearless Republican Guard. Daddy Bush hadn’t taken them out in ‘91 so they were still out there ready to kill our troops.

The day after war was started the newspapers pictured Bush in the Oval Office. He looked solemn and grave. He sat up straight behind his desk with his hands folded. He appeared very presidential. Later it was revealed that this self-proclaimed man of God was convinced that he was to go forward with this war. Our country was now in Bush’s hands—and God’s—although I wondered who this God was that advocated war.

The newspapers also pictured a soldier seated on a bench, bowing his bare head and praying as a rosary dangled from his folded hands. He was big and strong in his combat garb and he was a well-trained warrior. He looked apprehensive as he prepared for battle as though he knew his life was in God’s hands now, too.

On that somber night in March I imagined the soldiers breaking camp as they readied themselves for the push into Iraq. They solemnly but efficiently packed away their unnecessary gear, put on their flak vests, tied up their boots, straightened their helmets, and adjusted their rifles. These sounds trifled with the cacophony of trucks and tanks warming up their engines.

Once again the Middle Eastern desert, the “cradle of civilization,” would be filled with the clanging of metal against metal and will against will amid the low-pitched shouts of commanders and troops’ cries of “let’s go get ‘em.”

As the soldiers began the ground invasion into Iraq, jet fighter pilots dropped bombs on Iraqi military installations in order to scare the beejeezus out of the Iraqis through a new war tactic called “shock and awe.” The tremendous firepower unloaded on these targets was intended to make Saddam surrender unequivocally. It must have been a glorious sight if it had not been so deadly!

To me, the new war felt like a headache, an intense and splitting headache on the scale of a migraine. What had been unleashed in the world?

At that time no one ever doubted the U.S. would overtake Iraq. Images of victory flashed across our TV screens as our troops moved into city after city in record time. Once again, we would pound Iraqi troops without much loss of life. It looked like another cakewalk against Saddam.

In early April we saw the conquering of Baghdad symbolized in the tearing down of Saddam’s statue. It was reminiscent of our soldiers hoisting the flag at Iwo Jima. We had prevailed and the Iraqis thanked us for ridding them of their tyrant.

The newspapers also showed pictures of our soldiers relaxing in cushy chairs with their feet atop coffee tables as they puffed on cigars in Saddam’s palaces. It was the sweet taste of victory. I’m sure they were relieved it was over and they anticipated their return to the States.

Americans back home were happy, too. Well, some Americans. Those who initially supported the war saw its conclusion in those pictures. They had been right and Bush had been justified in calling for the war—because we had won it.

Those who didn’t support the war remained apprehensive. Some continued their demonstrations on downtown street corners denouncing the illegal, unnecessary, immoral destruction and death. They had been proved wrong.

One war hawk in my town berated the millions of “peace protesters” in a letter to the editor by asking: “Where’s the problem? What’s the worry?”

After five years of war with 4,000 Americans and one million Iraqis dead, the questions now are: when does it end, how and who’s going to do it?

BTW, What Do the Iraqis Want?

2008-03-12T08:23:00.005-04:00

You’ve got to hand it to the Quakers. They never quit. They are steadfast in their devotion to peace. And they continue to seek ways of informing Americans about the Iraq War, even when that war has become passé in the media and a largely avoided topic in the presidential debates.

Recently, in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, the Friends set up a “Speak for Peace Tour” and invited Raed Jarrar to provide an Iraqi perspective. I met him during his five-cities tour of Michigan.

Raed is a native of Baghdad who had just completed studies in architecture when his neighborhood was bombed by the Americans in April 2003. “Surgical warfare” was supposed to target only the “bad guys” and not civilians, but Raed found his neighbors were being killed and fleeing from their homes.

His purpose in life instantly changed. He decided to document civilian injuries and deaths during the first four months of the invasion. He recruited and organized 200 volunteers to conduct a survey by going door to door in cities and villages to find out who was hurt or killed.

“We gave names and faces for the Iraqi casualties,” said Raed. Also included in the survey were notes about the way each person was killed, the place and the monthly income of the dependents.”

Raed married an American and has lived in the U.S. for several years now. He works as a political analyst and consultant for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and has testified before Congress about conditions in Iraq. His blog, “In the Middle,” discusses U.S. foreign policy, the political scene and the media’s portrayal of Iraq and Iraqis. His commentary is blistering but hey, how would most of us feel if we lost our whole way of life?

During his visit to Kalamazoo where 150 people showed up, he was congenial, articulate and very pointed in letting us know what was happening in Iraq and what the U.S. should do.

“There is only one U.S. foreign policy for Iraq and that is one based on military interventionism,” he said. “Whether it is humanitarian aid or killing off the ‘bad guys’, the attitude remains that the United States must stay in Iraq.”

Raed said that the U.S. government’s justifications for intervention in Iraq have shifted but the motivation is the same: to control the Middle East and its oil resources.

For example, one of the reasons given in the 1990s to justify bombing and sanctioning Iraq was to save the habitat for certain birds living in the marshes that Saddam Hussein was drying up. Other reasons included saving the Kurds from genocide. Then it was to save the world from weapons of mass destruction. Now it is to prevent civil war between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites.

Military intervention in Iraq was not George W. Bush’s idea alone. His father and Bill Clinton were both itching to get into Iraq. And while Americans are stuck debating whether military intervention should be multilateral or unilateral, Raed was adamant that the U.S. never had any business being in Iraq in the first place.

“U.S. taxpayers should think about fixing the problems here before going outside to police and rescue the world,” he said referring to the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina, joblessness, poverty, and now the housing crisis. Actually, Raed put his money where his mouth is and went to New Orleans to volunteer in its reconstruction.

Five years of war in Iraq have resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1 million Iraqis (based on the July 2006 Lancet report that counted 600,000 Iraqi deaths).

“Americans need to realize that the violence in Iraq is the result of 18 years of illegal foreign intervention,” said Raed.

The solution of what to do about Iraq stymies most Americans. Both Democrats and Republicans maintain that it is imprudent to withdraw troops from Iraq but they come at it from different perspectives, said Raed.

The so-called “right” in Washington, D.C. believes that the terrorists will win and that the U.S. should stay in Iraq to defeat them. The so-called “left” wants the troops to stay because they believe that the ancient hatred between the Sunnis and Shi’ites will destroy the country so the Iraqis need to be rescued from civil war and the country should be partitioned.

While the “hawks” are openly speaking about leaving troops indefinitely, the “doves” want to start withdrawing the troops soon. What the majority of Americans don’t know is that the peaceful D.C. “doves” make three exceptions that would maintain up to 75,000 troops indefinitely in Iraq. These exceptions include training the Iraqi military forces, maintaining counter-terrorism operations and protecting the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Military trainers in Iraq are viewed as negatively as those at the School of the Americas who train Latin American officers and soldiers on strategy and tactics, including torture.

“Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurdish governmental and non-governmental militias that are being trained and protected by the U.S. are the major reasons why 4.5 million Iraqis have been kicked out of their homes during the last five years,” said Raed. “These militias are committing systematic ethnic and sectarian cleansing to create a new environment in Iraq where partitioning the country is possible.”

Secondly, counter-terrorism tactics have created more terrorism.

Prior to the 2003 invasion there was no Al Qaeda and no regional and international intervention in Iraq. There were no extremists blowing themselves up either, said Raed.

Thirdly, the U.S. embassy, which is as big as the Vatican, does not welcome Iraqi diplomats or legislative representatives. In fact, they are harassed and humiliated whenever they attempt to visit.

“The embassy is a base for long-term political intervention,” said Raed.

The U.S. has been taking the side of the minority separatists (comprised of Sunnis, Shi’ites, Kurds, Christians, seculars) against the majority nationalists (also comprised of Sunnis, Shi’ites, Kurds, Christians, seculars). This Iraqi-Iraqi conflict is not religious or sectarian. It is political and economic.

“A U.S. withdrawal will not unleash a pending religious civil war. It will open up a space for political reconciliation to start,” said Raed.

During the 2005 Iraqi election, which the Bush administration hailed as a “watershed moment in the story of freedom” and a victory in the war on terror, the American people didn’t quite catch what was going on with all those voters’ purple fingers, said Raed.

The Iraqis voted for a majority of nationalists to be their legislative representatives. (They do not vote for their executive branch.) Their candidates, who won a majority, were against privatization of the oil industry, against partitioning Iraq into ethno-sectarian confederations and they wanted the U.S. to leave the country.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi leadership turned out to be the five separatist parties that lost the elections and who were supportive of the Bush administration and helped plan its intervention in Iraq. And no wonder. The entire process was manipulated by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

So what should Americans think about Iraq?

“What three-quarters of the Iraqis want is a complete U.S. withdrawal,” said Raed. “No mercenaries. No permanent bases. No interference. Only complete withdrawal is the first step toward stabilizing Iraq. After that, we can start healing the wounds of this occupation.”

See What the Young Are Saying...and Be Moved

2008-02-25T07:08:00.003-05:00

In my peacemaking class I challenged my 20-year-old college students to approach global issues by studying the conflicts they engender and then to seek the ways of peace and nonviolence by starting with themselves to “be the change they wish to see in the world.”

Over the past six weeks we have looked at global warming, overpopulation, the “clash of civilizations”, and resource depletion (i.e., oil). I feared depressing them and even apologized for presenting them with such a glum picture of the future!

And then they surprised me.

As I read their journals, which reflect on the past week’s work, I consistently discovered that my students were far from being paralyzed by all these troubles. Instead they were facing the world with hope and courage and actively seeking practical solutions. Look at some of the remarks from their papers.

“I am depressed by the current situation, horrified by the possible future, and at the same time, completely inspired. As our conversation began to shift from how frightening the circumstances are at this point to what can still be done, I became very motivated to DO something.”

“Yes, it is true that our generation will be facing some of the most challenging decades to come….Yet, humanity is at the mercy of its own doings, and this is a beautiful concept in my eyes, because it means that there is a budding potential for change. If we look upon the history and disposition of civilization that produces such circumstances as human-made, they become influence-able. We have full responsibility.”

“One person at a time will change the world little by little, even if our good actions aren’t seen instantly.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t feel depressed or upset about our current and future state of affairs. Rather, it inspired a curiosity within myself to really think about how things are currently around the world and to learn more about what’s going on, to see what I can do and how minor ’sustainable’ or ‘green’ changes in my life will affect it and the way I see myself living it in the future.”

“Through all the dust and piles of dry wall, I could still see the progress we had made [in our Habitat for Humanity project]. It might be a slow process, but every shovel and every bucket full of dry wall is another step closer to the final product: a house for someone who could not afford one otherwise. And knowing that I am contributing to this product makes everything worth it. That is why I am willing to devote 3-4 hours every other Saturday morning.”

“We have to understand and make changes within ourselves before we can make changes in our community. I think that is vital for everyone, without exception. I never would have thought that I could make changes without first realizing that I had the potential and the passion [to so do].”

“I feel that I have reached that point in my life where I have become aware that something I love [the earth] is currently being destroyed. I cannot simply ignore it, because if I truly love it then I have to do something to save it. I cannot simply give up hope and be depressed about our situation because that is what enough people are doing already.”

“I think that my biggest downfall in my pursuit of the peacemaker lifestyle is my tendency to be overwhelmed by the feeling that I want to fix every problem of the world. This sensation of drowning in the problems of the world can often inspire feelings of apathy, and the notion that nothing you do will be enough to change the world. However, I have recently decided that what is important for me right now is taking the steps to enact change at home.”

“I believe that seeing the immediate effects on my college and community will not only make me a more engaged citizen, but will also remind me why it is important to remain positive and start at the local level.”

“How tired I am of having all the anger of seeing how others are more privileged, are better-off than I am and then to pretend that everything is all right….I now understand that anger is good only when it is taken in a positive direction. This is what creates passion, passion for change.”

And then here are some things they say they will do:

Begin an urban organic garden this summer in my community
Join Building Blocks (http://www.kzoo.edu/servicelearning/buildingblocks.htm) a College project where students paint houses in poor neighborhoods
Reduce my carbon footprint (http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx)
Slow down my pace of life
Double my efforts in conserving resources that I use and encourage those around me to do the same
Change the way I view production, the economy, and our consumerist culture
Make a conscious decision to walk when I can instead of driving and encourage others to do the same.
Protest against the energy crisis by becoming a vegetarian “as an alternative to the gluttonous carnivorous [American] lifestyle”
Take cold showers twice a week during Lent to be in solidarity with the poor
Do more research on New Urbanism (http://www.newurbanism.org/) to reduce urban sprawl
Observe more closely the violence that is inherent by our inaction (i.e., Hurricane Katrina, Kyoto Protocol, allowing the Iraq War to continue)
Apply for a job with Greepeace (http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/) in order to fight global warming
Apply for Teach for America (http://www.teachforamerica.org/)
Organize College events for Women’s History Month, volunteer for the Amigos Tutoring Program (http://www.kzoo.edu/servicelearning/amigos.htm), work with College Democrats
Continue to work on alternative forms of energy. (Last summer the student built a solar oven and planted a first-time organic garden.)

Truly, the best part about teaching is being inspired by the students!

This article appeared on Common Dreams on Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The Things They Do for Love

2008-02-17T05:08:00.003-05:00

Americans are largely unaware of the vastness and lethality of U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles, say Sisters Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson, the three nuns who did time in federal prison for breaking into the N-8 Minuteman missile site in October 2002.

Now that the sisters are all back from prison, they spent some time with me to explain how their religious commitment and civic duty led them to become activists for nuclear disarmament.

In 1978 after Sisters Ardeth and Carol first heard Helen Caldicott’s message on the dangers of nuclear weapons, they decided to work for the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign in Michigan, their home state. At the time, Michigan held the sixth largest cache of nuclear weapons in the country. The two sisters helped to organize a statewide ballot initiative for the Freeze in 1982, which passed at 56 percent.

They continued to work to free Michigan of all nuclear weapons until the Defense Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) inactivated the Wurtsmith Air Force Base near Oscoda in 1993 and the K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base near Marquette in 1995.

Continuing to feel the intensity of their call to eliminate nuclear weapons, Sisters Carol and Ardeth then joined Jonah House in Baltimore and became members of Plowshares. The worldwide peace organization spotlights the dangers of militarism and weapons of mass destruction through symbolic acts like their blood-spilling on the N-8 missile site.

Sister Jackie began her activism against nuclear weapons after being inspired by Sister Marjorie Tuite (1922-86) who talked about the “burden of knowledge” that doesn’t allow a person to know what’s going on in the world and not do anything about it. This burden calls for a “revolutionary integrity” that challenges one’s morality and calls for a continued commitment of the gospel’s message of “doing justice.”

“You can educate others and you can act,” said Sister Jackie, 73, who served 30 months at the Victorville Federal Prison Adelanto, Ca. “This is not always easy because there are consequences. However, when the consequences come, there is something that happens within that is deepened.”

Sister Jackie dedicated herself to the Ground Zero Center in Bremerton, Wash. near Seattle where she has lived since 1993. The center is located adjacent to the Trident submarine base where 2,000 nuclear warheads are stored. Peace activists regularly protest at the base and advocate its closing.

In 1996 the U.S. military stepped up its strategic capacity with Vision 2020, a plan to exploit and dominate outer space by linking all land, sea and air bases.

“Most people have no clue about Vision 2020,” said Sister Carol, 59, who spent 33 months at women’s prison at Alderson, W. Va. “Such a plan, if enacted, would lead to the utter devastation of the planet. So in 2000 we rang a bell saying that this was happening in our country and we must stop it.”

The sisters’ action against Vision 2020 occurred at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Co. where they poured their blood on a communications satellite and hammered a grounded fighter jet prior during an air show exhibit there. They did this because both presidential candidates that year had endorsed Vision 2020. The sisters were subsequently released without punishment.

“Nuclear weapons are the taproot of all violence,” said Sister Ardeth, 71, who served 41 months in the Danbury Federal Correction Institution in Connecticut. “Because we have these weapons of mass destruction and see ourselves as the remaining superpower nation, we proceed to intervene in other nations, claim other’s resources, and set up our military bases in their countries.”

She cited our war in Afghanistan, where we wanted to build an oil pipeline, and in Iraq, where we wanted their oil.

“The U.S. is obliged to abide by the non-proliferation treaty, to dismantle all of these weapons, in order to gain partnership with others and begin to work together,” said Sister Ardeth. “This is for our future survival, the survival of all people, of creation and the planet, herself.”

Sister Ardeth noted that since 1945 the United States has spent $20 trillion on military weapons. Meanwhile, millions of people in America and throughout the world are poor, sick and hungry because they lack even a fraction of such resources.

“When I learned about how poverty and racism work from the people who experience them, I saw that these things injure Mother Earth, too,” she said. “And I thank God in understanding the connection of all these violences. I thank God for the consciousness to say no to war and all violence.”

The sisters consider their action at the N-8 to be their citizen duty aimed at exposing the truth about weapons of mass destruction and the country’s unmitigated and bipartisan support for them.

They didn’t expect to go to prison nor did they think their sentences would be so severe, however, given heightened 9/11 security concerns, the prosecutor’s case against the nuns was probably used a deterrent to others who might want to plan future “symbolic” demonstrations.

Nevertheless, the sisters regard their prison time as “sacred time” not only because they “sacrificed” themselves for the cause of justice and nonviolence, but because their case received a lot more publicity than it might have. Their aim was to attract attention to the dangers of our country’s WMD as we were marching toward war over Iraq’s WMD.

The sisters recognize that not everyone can or is willing to go to prison as they did. As nuns they have the freedom to engage in public protest and to serve time in prison without disrupting family life.

“How could we not?” said Sister Carol without hesitation.

Actually, going to prison gave them the opportunity to “wash our hands of our complicity” with the military industrial complex.

Although the sisters’ religious status (and earning capacity) does not require them to pay income taxes, they do pay sales taxes on consumer goods and services. In other words, it is nearly impossible for them or any American citizen to avoid supporting the country’s war machine simply because everyone pays some kind of federal tax.

One might wonder if the sisters regard their effort and their prison time as worth it, especially as the Iraq War is nearing its fifth year and the president has been rattling sabers with Iran.

“We decided that our work is to end the war, to dismantle all WMDs, to stop all killing,” said Sister Ardeth. “At every Mass, in every prayer, we ask for this. It is programmed into us.”

“I don’t ever want a child to say that we did nothing,” said Sister Carol.

“I have a strong belief in life and love and lived to the best of my ability to practice those beliefs,” said Sister Jackie.

* * *

PLEASE NOTE: A new film titled “Conviction” by Brenda Truelson Fox of Boulder, CO, illustrates the sisters’ commitment to disarmament. Copies of the 43-minute film are available through Zero to Sixty Productions: www.ztsp.org.

This article appeared on Common Dreams on Friday, February 14, 2008.

That Ultimate Sinking Feeling

2008-02-10T10:23:00.001-05:00

I don’t know what it is but every morning when I wake up I expect to see a news report about something terrible that has happened overnight.

As I boot up my computer, watch the screen appear and wait for the Internet to click on, I hold my breath. After a glance over the headlines I then breathe a sigh of relief to find out that nothing terrible thing has happened. Yet.

Oh, there are the usual stories about civil wars, military coups, starvation, global warming, jobs leaving the country, buildings or bridges suddenly collapsing, storms, fires and floods. Frankly, I have become inured to these news items. What I’m looking for is that ultimate, disaster story that I fear, like another September 11.

It seems strange for me to worry like this, especially since I don’t live in the midst of danger as people do in Gaza or Colombia or the Sudan or Iraq or Pakistan. I don’t fear a terrorist’s bomb coming down on my town. Actually, I feel safe in my neighborhood and excited about the strides my city has made to revitalize itself.

Things are going well here despite the loss of our corporate mainstay, The Upjohn Company (now called Pfizer). And yes, over the past 10 years we lost four or five major paper companies, our landmark department store, the GM plant, and a few other manufacturing businesses. However, these bad news stories don’t compare to what I dread in the morning news report. I just have this sinking feeling that something terrible will happen that will change my life and our country forever. And I don’t want to face it.

It’s odd how the seasons calmly take their turn in the window outside my home. Birds continue to chirp. Squirrels are always scrambling. Rain or sunshine, snow or dreary weather comes and goes with each new day. Flowers bloom, grass dries out, leaves fall. I notice these regular, seasonal events and I anticipate them with a certain joy. My trepidation about the world is different and I’m consumed with that terrible sensation that something very bad will happen all too soon. So, sometimes I don’t read or listen to the news as if blindfolding myself can stop whatever I fear might happen.

I don’t think I’m any different from many Americans in these feelings. So what is it about us that our interest in news stories, even one as important and as dramatic as the Iraq War, is so fleeting after a while? It was only two years ago that the war was THE main issue and cause for a complete changeover in Congress. Yet, today, even though we’ve been at war for almost five years and spent nearly half a trillion dollars, you hardly hear much about it. Even our presidential candidates have managed to dodge talking much about the war. Now it’s the economy that matters most.

Like so many things we’ve had to endure over the past seven years, maybe we just get used to the same old stories and need to move on to something else.

It would seem I’d get over my feelings of expecting some terrible disaster to occur because it never happens. However, as I look at the accumulated list of all these little things, I’m coming to believe that perhaps, something terrible IS happening to America and maybe we just don’t recognize it. But then, what would we do?

Space Heroes Revisited

2008-02-01T13:45:00.002-05:00

“Apollo 13,” one of my favorite movies, was on TV last weekend. It’s a good story about a “successful failure” that illustrated how good ol’ American ingenuity and determination saved the three moon-bound astronauts from perishing in space.

Although the film takes some artistic license in depicting the events and people of the flight, what popped out at me in watching it were the astronauts’ and flight commander’s leadership qualities of courage, confidence, determination, and focus.

I suspect that these qualities came through because like so many Americans I’m desperately searching for them in today’s political leadership.

The heady days of the Apollo moon flights and the Mercury and Gemini missions that preceded them were different times from today to be sure. America was growing. We were ready for any challenge. We were well-respected for our principles and ideals.

The NASA space program of the 1960s served as a beacon of our national pride as the exciting race-to-the-moon match up between the USA and the Soviet Union consumed us, I maintain, in a healthy way. We educated ourselves on space technology, watched their flights from lift-off to splash-down and reached for the stars ourselves in our own stations of life.

However, by April 1970 when Apollo 13 was launched, it became obvious that we had come to a turning point as Americans grew blasé about space flight. Going to the moon? Well, we had seen it twice before.

Some of this attitude is cultural: Americans are hyper-active for new and improved things. However, we were also affected by the heaviness of the disastrous Vietnam War, which like today’s Iraq War, seemed to have no end.

We were also probably exhausted over the challenge and excitement that the civil rights and the women’s movements made on our business-as-usual attitudes toward racism and sexism. Working for justice and equality was in the air but it was painfully difficult to face the ways our prejudice had silenced and omitted so many people from full participation in our society.

Most assuredly our attitudes were also influenced by the loss of our heroes—John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy—who had given us hope, moved us to our best selves and ignited our activist spirits.

Those tumultuous times drained our confidence in ourselves and perhaps killed our spirit along with our heroes. It left us to sink in a grand funk of self-absorption, greed, and anxiety that we’ve been unable to shake ever since. Perhaps that is why our leaders today seem to be short on leadership and long on pandering.

However, when the Apollo 13 astronauts were in trouble at least for a little while we forgot our malaise and gathered around Commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert in genuine prayer and heartfelt support for their safe return. That happened because we moved outside ourselves and our own problems and focused instead on three people in serious trouble.

Here are some examples of ways the film depicts leadership.

Fred Haise (played by Bill Paxton) is so sick he can hardly function yet he never gives up on himself or on the crew to do his duty.

When the crew learns that Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) is working on their re-entry procedure in the simulator, they all breathe a sigh of relief because they trust him. He refuses to take a break because he knows that his fellow astronauts aren’t able to rest either.

As the astronauts pass around the moon, Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) prefers to look away not because he had seen it before on a previous flight but because he is deeply disappointed about the scrubbed landing. He struggles with his disappointment and then bucks himself up to move on.

“Gentlemen, what are your intentions?” he asks. Then answers: “I want to go home.”

But going home presents its problems. He must steer the ship without a computer. Carbon dioxide levels become too high. Food is frozen and the three astronauts are freezing. A typhoon forms near the splash-down site and the heat shield may be damaged.

As the men prepare for re-entry, Lovell congratulates his men on what they have been able to do. “Gentlemen, it’s been a privilege flying with you.”

Lovell is a brave gentleman himself without tears and without gimmicks who has understood that his responsibility as commander requires that he set a good example for his crew.

On the ground Flight Commander Gene Kranz (played by Ed Harris) shows the same leadership qualities. He has an absolute commitment to the crew and an absolute faith in his engineers to do the impossible, like “putting a square peg in a round hole.”

Kranz sets goals and organizes his ground crew to achieve them. He asks for opinions, listens carefully, and makes calculated choices. He is competent. Most importantly, he knows the value of life and is determined “not to lose those men on [my] watch.”

The film also illustrates what leadership isn’t through the characters of the lunar module (LEM) contractor and the media. They represent the “fear factor” with its accompanying paralysis as well as the greed that accompanies selfish concerns.

For example, the contractor could only aver that the LEM was not designed to be anything other than a moon taxi to and from the command module. He limits his imagination because he is more concerned about losing his own job.

Kranz pushes him back and reminds him that the mission has changed and requires new definitions. The LEM becomes a “lifeboat.”

The media looks equally bad in the film. Uninterested in an “old news story” of landing on the moon, reporters ignore the Apollo 13 flight until it gets into trouble. Then, like a pack of starving dogs going after a slab of meat, the reporters discover a “new story” and intrude on the astronauts’ families in a brash, voyeuristic and just plain rude way.

Only Walter Cronkite, the most trusted newsman of that time, shows a human side to his work. He worries about the astronauts during the flight and then shares his tears of relief and joy when they return to earth.

America needs to recognize that it has reduced itself to the level of the LEM contractor and the media and WE need to change.

In this year’s presidential election WE need to call forth a new kind of leader who is willing to confront not only our country’s problems but those of “spaceship earth” (i.e., global warming, poverty, health care, unemployment, resource depletion).

And WE need someone who will inspire US to tackle these problems courageously and confidently with determination and focus.

I think Barack Obama might be the one we’re looking for.

Primary Blues in Michigan

2008-01-14T13:09:00.001-05:00

Michiganders will be treated to a presidential primary on Tuesday and to tell you the truth, people here are really glum about it for many reasons.

First, the Democratic ticket lists only Clinton and Kucinich. Party leaders are encouraging people favoring other candidates to mark the “uncommitted” spot on their ballots or to “do mischief” in the Republican primary.

Second, Mitt Romney is predicted to win Michigan probably because his father, George, was governor here in the prosperous 1960s.

Third, our state party chiefs tried to move our primary closer the beginning of the year in order to put Michigan in a more influential position for selecting a general election nominee. Instead they managed to have the candidates and the media practically ignore us.

Fourth, Michigan citizens have many issues the candidates are not addressing.

For example, racked by a 7.4 percent and rising unemployment rate, our state lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs since mid-2000 with more to come through 2009. October housing starts were down 46.4 percent from the peak two years ago and home values plummeted 18 percent. A record 70,000 homes face foreclosure.

Last year 30,500 more residents left the state making us Number One in the nation for out-migration. This rate even outdistances the 1981 auto recession exodus.

Graduates from our colleges and universities are leaving the state because they can’t find work. More than half of the graduates from the prestigious University of Michigan leave. Seventy-five percent of our new teachers leave. That’s a brain drain at a time when we need all the creative power and youthful energy we can get.

However, it gets worse when you consider what has happened to us politically.

Our former governor, a Republican, passed 26 tax cuts over his three terms in office (1991-2003) and the results of his work have plunged the state into hopelessness. For example, he cut off social services to the very poor. He hated and hassled teachers and their unions. He demonized the environmental protection agencies and made them powerless against corporate interests intent on plundering our natural resources. He defaced Lake Michigan with slant drilling operations in order to capture the small amounts of oil and natural gas that lay there.

Now we have our first woman governor, a Democrat and a dynamic, charismatic and hope-filled enthusiast for the state. However, like so many politicians who only want to be elected, she has played it safe since she was first elected in 2002 and offers few solutions and many excuses.

Last fall our state registered a billion-dollar deficit and that came after cutting government to the bone.

Our state legislature is comprised of a bunch of bumbling amateurs who protect their $80,000/year paychecks and lifetime health care benefits as they attack our public school teachers’ pensions and health care plans. They also squabble over the crumbs of our state economy and they do it rather anonymously because their six and eight-year term limits barely give them time to know their jobs let alone become acquainted with their constituents.

Michigan has been whipsawed by one-issue groups who pound out their ideology with a vengeance. Right to Life has been able to edge out moderate pro-choice candidates in favor of tax-cutting extremists for a couple decades. In a 2004 ballot initiative, the Roman Catholic Church spent $750,000 to campaign against gay marriage.

Economics and politics aren’t the only things troubling Michigan. We are beholden to the power and influence of the automobile industry, which is dependent on the nation’s ability to acquire cheap oil. Michigan politicians are therefore afraid to touch any oil or environmental issues lest they lose their financial backing from the auto industry.

However, Michigan is not alone in this “catch-22” oil quagmire. The whole nation is affected.

Like any business, the auto industry is focused on making profits and the industry’s survival has resulted in a series of unintended consequences that have encouraged Americans to increase their use of oil.

For example, this is the same industry that was totally unprepared to respond to the 1973 oil crisis, which resulted in supplementing our peaked out domestic reserves with foreign oil. It lagged behind Japan in developing energy-saving technology and subsequently lost market share. Then it lost interest in such technology and later re-built sales with gas-guzzling pick-up trucks and SUVs.

This is the same industry that pushed for building our fantastic Interstate system in the 1950s that inadvertently created our sprawling metropolitan areas. Now, instead of walking to work, school or the grocery store, we need our cars. Since the drivers in a family usually go in different directions, they each need a car. Great for selling cars. Not so great for reducing traffic jams, voraciously using up natural resources to make the cars, or in creating climate-changing carbon emissions.

This is the same industry that helped to deep-six a working public transportation system of electric streetcars, subways and trains so that it could sell diesel-fueled buses that pollute and prove too costly to run so services are cut.

This is the same industry that looked for cheaper, non-union labor so it left Michigan and eventually the country and ended up helping to build the monolithic global economy.

Today, U.S. automakers are nibbling around the edges to produce hybrid cars while Toyota, the world’s second largest auto producer, has been cranking out more energy-efficient cars.

Now, as more and more people acknowledge the connection between carbon emissions and global warming, we see a struggling U.S. auto industry painfully out of sync with environmental concerns and our politicians unable to grapple with this issue because they are afraid of losing voters who are afraid of losing their cars and/or their jobs in the auto industry.

Worse yet, as we come closer to peaking out in the world’s oil reserves (some say it is between now and 2037), nary a word is spoken by our presidential candidates regarding ways to prepare for that inevitability, except for biofuels. Michigan’s governor is among them.

What is missed in this biofuels solution is that urban sprawl has gobbled up land formerly used for farming over the past 50 years. What we will eventually have to face is the moral dilemma of using the land to fuel our cars or to grow food to feed our families. This dilemma doesn’t even touch our food exports, particularly to those countries who depend on our grains.

The Michigan Presidential Primary may be emblematic of what is so disconcerting about this year’s election. With our endless and expensive oil war in Iraq, global warming, peak oil, environmental degradation and the need for universal health care, what are the presidential candidates offering as solutions to these problems?

Unfortunately, we don’t know because the candidates aren’t talking and the media aren’t asking!

This article appeard on OpEdNews on Monday, January 14, 2008.

Flashback: Christmas 2003

2008-01-03T23:30:00.001-05:00

The Kalamazoo Gazette bled with irony this morning. In the Faith and Spirituality section the columnist called for an end to violent toys for Christmas.

Meanwhile, local news reported that fifth grade students were treated to a 90-minute presentation by two U.S. Air Force reservists who had been stationed in Kuwait and Iraq earlier this year.

The teacher and a university intern (a teacher-in-training) planned the visit in an attempt to bring “history to life.” The students had been studying aviation since September.

The airmen showed students “artifacts of their time in Kuwait and Iraq.” Students also got a gander at an inert bullet, a gas mask and a small replica of a 500-pound general purpose bomb.

After a slide show and two videos of American soldiers in the Middle East, the room grew silent, according to the article, while images of bombs, sand storms and convoys were flashed before the students to the tune of “Proud to Be an American.”

At the end of the presentation, the reservists led all 19 students in the “Pledge of Allegiance” as they stood facing the American flag with their right hands resting over their hearts.

One eleven-year-old boy thought the visit was “cool” because he “got to see two people from Iraq that build bombs”

Another boy said that he appreciated receiving his own 30mm empty bullet cartridge that the reservists provided each of the students. He also liked the movies.

This event happened in Mattawan, a sleepy exurb of Kalamazoo where people fled to provide safe haven for their children from the big, bad city and its broken down schools.

Are such lessons on aviation preparation for the Bush Doctrine of permanent war or is this just the American version of the Hitler Youth Corps?

Will freedom-loving Americans ever wake up to what is happening in this country?

The “Unholy” Alliance

2007-12-23T22:29:00.000-05:00

When First Lady Hillary Clinton referred to the “vast right-wing conspiracy” in 1998, she wasn’t kidding. The public, guided by the mainstream media, pooh-poohed her statement as defensive paranoia but it turns out she was referring to a tightly-networked group of foreign policy wonks called the Neoconservatives.

Fortunately, Craig Unger in his book, The Fall of the House of Bush, has provided both the cast and playbook of this Right Wing power elite as he tells the story about how an “unholy” alliance between George W. Bush, the Neoconservatives and the Christian Fundamentalists came together to formulate the most cockamamie Middle East foreign policy our country has ever seen.

While some of the book is old news, it bears repeating again and again until the American public understands who these people are and what they have wrought. Unger’s twist to the story, however, is in the behind-the-scenes machinations of their power-making.

NEOCONSERVATIVES

Today’s Neoconservatives were originally New Left intellectuals who came out of the antiwar movement and sixties counterculture as angry individuals who either felt rebuffed socially or professionally and/or were attracted to the hawkish anti-communist dogma of Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson.

They imitated the Left’s Brookings Institution by creating their own think tanks and lobbying groups, developing a fundraising apparatus and recruiting “scholars” and “experts” all for the purpose of promoting a new Neoconservative ideology that would “overturn the present power structure of the country,” as Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation, asserted.

The list of Neocons reads like a Post Office bulletin board for all the damage they have done. Most have even become household names including: William Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Bork, Francis Fukuyama, Norman Podhoretz, Ben Wattenberg, Mayrav Wurmser, James Woolsey, Kenneth Adelman, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Lynne Cheney, David Frum, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Newt Gingrich, Frederick Kagan, Irving Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Joshua Muravchick, Charles Murray, Michael Novak, Norman Ornstein, Danielle Pletka, Gary Schmitt, Fred Thompson, David Wurmser, Douglas Feith, John Yoo.

Besides the Heritage Foundation, the Neocons also work for other groups like the American Enterprise Institute, Hudson Institute, Freedom House, Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, Hoover Institution, Accuracy in Media, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Project for the New American Century.

These organizations are financed with the help of right-wing billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, Sun Myung Moon and Richard Mellon Scaife (who funded a series of investigations attacking President Clinton’s presidency).

In order to shape public opinion, the Neocons have relied on a barrage of media inputs through right-wing news outlets like the New York Post, Fox News, the Washington Times, the American Spectator, and the Weekly Standard.

However, they have also achieved a legitimate platform for their views by writing op-ed pieces and serving as opposing viewpoints in media interviews in the “liberal press” (i.e., network news, New York Times and Washington Post).

In 2000 the Neocons finally hit the jackpot. They found a presidential candidate who would adopt their platform of creating a new American empire that would assert U.S. domination in the Middle East in order to control energy resources (like oil and gas), open up corporate-friendly markets, set up strategic military bases and protect Israel.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Before George W. Bush entered the national stage, he gave up drinking, found the Lord and became more serious about politics. He greatly contributed to his father’s presidential campaigns by appealing to the same Fundamentalist Christians who would later help him in his own presidential bid. However, he first had to prove that he deserved to be the favored son. He did that in 1994 by winning the governorship of Texas by a wide margin while his brother, Jeb, won the Florida governorship by a slim margin.

According to Unger, the tense father-son relationship all came down to Bush’s inability to live up the reputation and accomplishments of his father, as illustrated in the opening chapter titled “Oedipus Tex.” Such family dramas are common, however, this one is being played out on the world stage.

No surprise to his critics, Bush deliberately does the opposite of what his political realist father would do. He also consistently refused the guidance of his father’s advisers, like the foreign policy-wise and ultra-trustworthy Brent Scowcroft or family friend, James Baker, who helped Bush in the 2000 Florida re-count and tried to bail him out the disastrous Iraq War in 2006.

Bush did, however, accept Colin Powell, as Secretary of State but that was only to trot out his good name for the 2000 and 2004 elections. He rarely consulted Powell and then dumped him in 2005 even after Powell sold his soul for his president in his February 2003 United Nations speech that helped sell a war against Iraq. Unger devotes a whole, heart-wrenching chapter to this tragedy that undid one of the most credible, admired men in the USA.

The Bush administration has its own system of checks and balances where its Neocon members oversee the work of the realists of the first Bush administration. The ranks of the administration are also filled with Neocon mentors and mentees. For example, White House interns don’t come from the Ivy League colleges anymore but rather from evangelical colleges that are full of homeschooled fundamentalists. Lawyers for the Justice Department hail from Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School. And then there’s Tim LaHaye, author of the apocalyptic “Left Behind” series of novels. He and his Council for National Policy have regular access to the Oval Office.

FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS

The sixties also deeply affected the Fundamentalist Christians, who saw modern humanist culture as the scourge on the nation. The Supreme Court’s ruling on school prayer and desegregation especially provoked them, however, it was the legalization of abortion in 1973 that finally galvanized them to action.

Although the public perceived the Fundamentalists as clueless rubes and fools, Jerry Falwell saw them as an opportunity for power and influence. Only half of the Fundamentalists voted but one third of Americans considered themselves “born again.” Fifty percent believed in biblical inerrancy and 80 percent saw Jesus as divine. Meanwhile, radio and TV evangelists had garnered a built-in audience of 130 million.

Disappointed with “born again” President Jimmy Carter, Falwell in 1978 began talking about “unborn babies” who were murdered through abortion. He also gathered 20-25 top political operatives at his church in Lynchburg, Va., and rallied them to become involved in the political process as a way of bringing back traditional moral values. They helped with Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign.

Conservative activist Morton Blackwell, executive director of the College Republican National Committee, also joined with Falwell. He brought with him some talented and aggressive young men including Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist and Jack Abramoff.

The Fundamentalist Christians talk about the Founding Fathers and their ideals but it is important to realize that they are referring to religious Puritans like Cotton Mather who encouraged the Salem witch trials and not the deistic modernist men of the Enlightenment like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Paine.

Unger contends that from the beginning, America been caught in the dilemma between fundamentalism and modernism. Today, as a result, America is in deep trouble both domestically and internationally because of this “unholy” alliance, which will undoubtedly outlast Bush, at least for a little while.

Americans who detest what this alliance is doing must recognize the characters, their institutions and their tactics and challenge them. They must also support those who are fighting for our Constitution like the ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the American Freedom Campaign, which is urging the restoration of the checks and balances system of government and reversing the executive branch’s abuses of power.

WMD of USA

2007-12-13T15:28:00.000-05:00

As he watched the first successful demonstration of the Bomb explode, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” said that a line from the Bhagavad Gita immediately came to mind: “I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Ever since the 1950s the United States always seems to be on the brink of nuclear holocaust. Back then the threat was the Soviet Union. As the Cold War continued, more nations felt a need to protect themselves so they, too, acquired “the Bomb” including Great Britain (1952), France (1960), China (1964). Today these three countries own 750, 350 and 130 weapons, respectively, while Russia (1949) maintains 16,000, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

In 1974 India began developing “the Bomb” but it wasn’t until 1998 that it successfully tested one. Six months later its archrival, Pakistan, tested its own Bomb in order to counteract India’s Bomb. Each country now has about 50 weapons. In 2006, North Korea let the world know it, too, had the Bomb, although negotiations are underway to dismantle it. Many people suspect that Israel has a stash of 75-200 warheads, however, leaders remain tight-lipped about reporting these weapons.

Americans’ experience with the Bomb immediately stirred up concern last fall when President Bush said that Iran’s desire to acquire nuclear power could lead to the development of nuclear weapons, which could then lead to World War III. Even recent revelations that the Iranians ended their weapons program in 2003 haven’t quelled the administration’s “fears” over Iran. What is particularly peculiar in this conversation is that the United States itself has nearly 10,000 nuclear missiles, with 5,173 of them considered “active,” according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Most Americans are largely unaware of the vastness and lethality of U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles, say Sisters Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson, who did time in federal prison for protesting nuclear weapons by breaking into a Colorado Minuteman III missile site in October 2002. In a recent interview, they said that the end of the Cold War somehow led people to believe the weapons had somehow disappeared.

In fact, Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, estimates that another 20 to 30 countries are now capable and interested in building their own Bombs! Consequently, there is a growing worldwide movement to eliminate nuclear weapons arsenals because of the danger they pose to all life on earth and because of their accessibility to would-be terrorists (The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists).

While the members of the Nuclear Club have been dismantling many of their weapons, the world currently has a total of about 31,000 nuclear warheads, according to Nuclear Files. The combined explosive yield of these weapons is approximately 5,000 megatons or 200,000 times the explosive yield of the 15-kiloton bomb used on Hiroshima where over 100,000 people were killed.

In using those Hiroshima numbers as a point of comparison for today’s weapons, it is clear that the U.S. has an extremely dangerous and costly WMD stockpile (at least $5 trillion, according to Stephen I. Schwartz, editor of the 1998 book Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940).

Below is a summary of the U.S. arsenal of land, sea and air nuclear weapons and the strength of their firepower gathered from several nonprofit sources including the Center for Defense Information (CDI); the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Nuke Watch; and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists .

Please note that the numbers provided are only estimates because it is very difficult to obtain solid data due to sketchy governmental reporting systems, weapons’ status and the ever-evolving reduction programs that shift both the number and power of the weapons.

LAND-BASED WEAPONS

Four hundred and fifty Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) stand in silos on “high alert” in Minot, North Dakota (150), Great Falls, Montana (150) and in the lonely grasslands of Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado (150).

Each of these missiles has the power of 170-300 kilotons or 11-20 Hiroshima bombs. The combined firepower of all 450 missiles amounts to 76,500 to 135,000 kilotons. The combined force of these Minuteman missiles would be capable of killing 510 to 900 million people.

SEA-BASED WEAPONS

The United States now has 14 Trident submarines, which deploy 2,346 warheads, according to the NRDC. Eight Tridents are based at Kings Bay, Georgia, and six in Bangor, Washington.

Each submarine can carry eight 475-kiloton warheads on each (D-5) missile. So one submarine can carry up to 3,800 kilotons of firepower, which is equivalent to 253 Hiroshima bombs. This means that the power of one Trident II submarine could potentially kill 25.3 million people. All 14 of our Trident submarines combined could kill 354.2 million people.

AIR-BASED WEAPONS

The B-52 long-range bomber is equipped with 20 air-launched cruise missiles with 200 kilotons of firepower for each missile. One bomber, therefore, can carry equivalent to 4,000 kilotons of power or the equivalent of 267 Hiroshima bombs. The United States has 76 bombers, which amounts to 304,000 kilotons of combined power and a potential kill capacity of 20,266,000 people.

The United States has 21 B-2 “stealth bombers” that can each carry 16 gravity bombs. There are 3 kinds of gravity bombs: the B-53 bomb has 9 megatons (or 9 million kilotons) of firepower; the B-61 ranges between 100 and 500 kilotons; and the B-83 has the firepower of 1-2 megatons (1-2 million kilotons). So one stealth bomber with 16 gravity bombs, well, the calculations are now getting astronomical and by now you get the idea of how lethal these weapons are.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

In 1997 the U.S. military stepped up its strategic weapons capacity with Vision 2020. This plan aims to exploit and dominate outer space by linking all land, sea and air-based weapons systems. Unfortunately, Vision 2020 would violate the United Nations’ 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which banned the deployment of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in space.

“The Clinton administration opened the door to developing space weapons but that administration never did anything about it. The Bush policy now goes further,” said Michael Krepon of the Stimson Centre to The Washington Post. In 2004 the Air Force developed a weapons in space plan. In 2006 the Pentagon requested millions of dollars for testing and developing a space program.

Before we worry about Iran developing nuclear weapons, it seems an opportune time for the American people to face seriously the question of whether or not we want to continue this insane preparation for nuclear holocaust as a legacy to our progeny and our gift to the world.

Seven Palestinian Women

2007-12-05T09:13:00.000-05:00

Seven Palestinian women traveled to five cities across the United States this fall on a three-week cultural exchange trip sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. Among the women’s greatest surprises was their ease of movement.

This movement wasn’t about cars and planes or freeways and roads. It was about their not having to go through checkpoints.

Living in a place where people are deemed dangerous brings with it few rewards. As Palestinians the women must endure life in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which now has an imposing 25-foot high concrete “separation wall.”

Construction of the wall began in 2002. Its 700 kilometers (1,126.5 miles) snake through the Israeli and the Palestinian territories and come complete with razor-wire fences, trenches and watchtowers. In some places the wall literally surrounds a village, like a prison, or cuts the village in two, thus making access a hardship and a burden.

Palestinians must go through countless checkpoints to get from place to place. They must carry identification and endure unfriendly Israeli soldiers who manage the checkpoints, said Reem Saleh, project coordinator for the Ministry of Culture and one of the seven visitors.

“Children can’t get to school without delays at the checkpoints and that makes getting an education stressful and confusing,” said Abeer Shihabi, division head in the Ministry of Education. “It takes some children 50 minutes to get to school when it used to take only eight minutes. Others begin a two-hour journey starting at 5 a.m. Each trip is dangerous and uncertain. Of course, they are searched at the checkpoints and the gates are not open at predictable or regular hours.”

People fear the soldiers at the checkpoints, said Shihabi. Searches are often humiliating. In one instance, some women were strip-searched at a checkpoint. As they disrobed in a tent, soldiers opened the flaps and stared at them. Some women have waited so long at the checkpoints that they’ve delivered their babies.

Access to machinery, water and markets is also a problem, especially for those who live in rural villages and farms, she said. Families can’t see each other as often. For those who lose their jobs, they must rely on their relatives to give them a home or resources that they can’t get themselves.

According to the United Nations, over 680,000 people, one third of the West Bank population, are affected by the wall. The World Court has called the wall a gross violation of international law and basic human rights.

“The wall’s purpose is to annex lands of the Palestinians,” said Nisreen Al-taher, a computer programmer and administrator for the Ministry of National Economy. And the Israeli occupation has also severely limited Palestinians’ ability to participate in the global marketplace.

The Palestinian economy is deeply in debt and it shows no signs of a turn around, said Rola Abweh, division head of the Ministry of Finance. Unemployment is at 63 percent and there are no business or development opportunities because the business climate is too risky to attract those willing to invest.

The New York Times reported recently that 85 percent of factories in the Palestinian territories are shut or operating at less than 20 percent capacity.

Only 13 percent of Palestinian women are employed and nine percent are the sole breadwinners of their families, said Fatimah Botmeh, director of training and technical assistance for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

The stress of the economic situation impacts Palestinian women considerably, she said. When they are widowed or their husbands are imprisoned, they are pressed to make a living for their families in addition to continuing their household responsibilities. The uncertainty of their situation leads to emotional and health problems. Then there is no government (rather it is called the Palestinian Authority) and no police, army or social services organization to assist them.

The World Bank estimates that 75 percent of the Palestinians live on less than $2 a day and so the people rely on outside sources to live.

People from all over the world sympathetic to the Palestinians are donating computers, sewing machines and other equipment. Because girls have the most difficulty in obtaining an education due to safety concerns, some charity groups take Palestinian girls from their villages and bring them to schools elsewhere so that can be educated and then return home to establish businesses in their community, said Botmeh.

The European Union maintains several towns with monetary and material aid and several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) help out as well. U.S. government aid to the Palestinians is minimal.

Hiba Abu Zayyad, a researcher in the Central Public Health Laboratory, said that the Japanese, Norwegians, Italians have especially pitched in to supply equipment and pharmaceuticals as well as food and water. However, the hospital buildings themselves are falling apart and access to advanced equipment remains elusive.

People in rural areas suffer the most, she said. Delays in mail delivery affect the reliability of their pathology tests. Sample kits often arrive just before the expiration date and are useless.

Gaza is isolated from the rest of the Palestinian territories and people live there without water, electricity or proper sanitation. It is a place ripe for disease and no one can do anything about it said Zayyad.

About 4.6 million Palestinian refugees live in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Only 3.7 million of them receive assistance from the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA). However, this funding has been cut and may be stopped because it is believed that the money is funding terrorists groups.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy and an expert on international terrorism, reported in September 2003 that the (UNRWA) distributed $521.7 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2002. However, the PA was staffed by Hamas who she said undoubtedly used the money for terrorist activities. Ehrenfeld also claimed that while Palestinian Arab refugees constitute only 17 percent of world’s refugees, they receive more than one third of the annual refugee funds allocated by the UNRWA.

The Palestinian refugee problem was created during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence where between 520,000 and 800,000 refugees lost their homes and lands to Israel, according to the MidEast Web Gateway. There are even conflicting stories about what happened. The Israelis say the Palestinians attacked them and then fled voluntarily. The Palestinians believe that the Zionists suddenly attacked them, grabbed their lands and evicted them by force.

After the 1967 Six Day War several hundred thousand more refugees fled and were not allowed to return to their homes. Israel has consistently viewed the refugees as hostile, belligerent aggressors. The Palestinians, led by Yasser Arafat, denied Israel’s right to exist (until 1988 when he accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242).

“It is the Arab-Israeli conflict that is the issue causing the problems on the West Bank,” said Nabila Rizk, director of Evaluation at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. “If we solved that problem, the whole issue of the Middle East would be solved.”

“It’s not easy being Palestinian,” said Rizk. “The United States, the leader of the free world, is usually biased toward the Israelis even though Palestinians are suffering the most from being killed and arrested by the occupying Israel army. Our homes are destroyed and our olive trees (a source of income as well as a symbol of life in that region) are cut down. Then the media criminalizes the Palestinians.”

“Americans are used to seeing Jews as a civilized and good people rather than the Arabs and Muslims,” said Rizk. “The Israelis come from all over the world [because of the Jewish diaspora] and they are used to dealing with everybody. They also make use of the Holocaust to gather sympathy for their cause [to establish and maintain an Israel state].”

As difficult as the situation is for the Palestinians, the seven Palestinian women expressed their great hope that all will things will turn out well—and they refuse to feel like victims.

Palestinians are “hanging on” said Botmeh, “because we believe that someday we will live in peace as a free and independent state.”

“We need to work more to give absolute justice to our case,” said Zayyad. “If we did not have this horrible situation to deal with, we would not be as strong as we are.” She cites a Palestinian proverb that translates to: A hit that doesn’t kill me just makes me stronger.

“It’s in our blood to survive,” said Zayyad.

The women agreed that just being in the United States to tell about their predicament is a good sign. After all, the U.S. State Department supported their trip.

“We are going to live. We are not giving up on life,” said Botmeh. “As long as we are living, we will do our best to advance our cause. We do all of this for our children. We have hope for them and their future.”

“We are born free,” she said. “When you believe in a cause, you always feel strong and have to defend it. That is automatic.”

As professional women, Botmeh believes that she and her colleagues are in positions where they can affect change.

(During their three-week tour of the United States, the seven Palestinian women visited Tampa, FL; Washington, D.C.; New York City, Reno, NV; and Kalamazoo, MI. The women were guests of Colleagues International in Kalamazoo, where this report originated.)

This article appeared in CommonDreams.org on Thursday, December 6, 2007

A Review of America’s ‘Investment’ in El Salvador

2007-11-19T20:13:00.005-05:00

On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter were murdered execution-style by the right-wing Salvadoran military government. The priests were killed for teaching their students ideas about liberating themselves from the oppression of the rich families that owned most of the country’s wealth. The cook and her daughter were killed because they were on the premises and potential witnesses to the crime.

The perpetrators were trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), a.k.a. the School of the Americas where Latin American military officers learn the latest methods of murder, rape and torture. Every year since 1990, Father Roy Bourgeois and the SOA Watch lead a weekend demonstration outside Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia, to demand closure of this U.S. program. The execution of “the martyrs,” as the Salvadorans call them, finally put an international spotlight on the ugly civil war that had already cost 75,000 people their lives, including Archbishop Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980.

Congressman Joe Moakley (D-Massachusetts) investigated the situation in El Salvador, which began a process to end the 12-year civil war-and to reveal the U.S. government’s role in it as well. Eventually, the United Nations helped the warring sides to sign a peace agreement in January 1992.

Here is an eye-witness report of my visit to El Salvador last November. It illustrates the legacy of our government’s $6 billion “investment” in that war after 15 years of peace-and provides a sample of what we can expect from our $1.6 trillion and counting “investment” in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A shoeless boy wearily weaves his way down the street, alone, in a limp pair of soiled shorts and a torn t-shirt. Heaps of trash pile up in the vacant corners of neighborhoods and on grassy medians on the city’s streets. Dogs, comprised of many breeds, some of them obviously sick with disease, listlessly amble through the streets avoiding the path of a strutting rooster or a mother hen with her perky and curious chicks.

A shabby, dazed, young man slumps on his rump over one of the benches of a busy community laundry. As the women scrub their family’s clothes or those they’ve put out for hire, the man cuddles a greasy, white, plastic canister of glue with his nose stuck down deep in it as much as his face will allow.

Two men with sawed-off shotguns stand in front of a Burger King. The police, who work long, boring hours and lack the public’s respect, are unable to guarantee order consistently so business owners hire private guards to protect themselves, their customers, and their property.

Even on Saturdays the young women of the sweatshop factories, the maquiladoras, rouse themselves to report to work at 6 a.m. where they will spend the next 14 hours sewing fashion clothing soon be sold in stores all over the United States.

It’s dark at 6 p.m. in November and by 8 the streets of La Chacra, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the capital city of San Salvador, are deserted because the 30,000 residents close up their shops and lock the doors of their homes in order to secure themselves against the vagrancies of warring youth gangs with guns and drugs.

The polluted Rio Acelhuate runs through La Chacra but the kids who play in it and their families who use it for watering animals lack an understanding of basic public health principles. This means that they typically suffer physical ailments from their poverty: dermatitis and fungus (skin diseases caused by wet feet and close contact with garbage), gastro-intestinal conditions (from parasites), diabetes, arthritis, and hypertension.

It’s easy to see why upper respiratory diseases are so prevalent in the city. A thick, black cloud constantly hovers over the city due to all the diesel emissions of cars and especially the buses. At rush hour you can hardly breathe the air it is so polluted. Even the rain offers no relief and summer must be awful when the seamy, humid tropical air adds to this noxious soup.

While most Salvadorans obtain a sixth grade education, one of the lowest rates in the world, only 50 percent complete the ninth grade and 25 percent make it through high school. Unemployment or underemployment in the country is about 50 percent and the illiteracy rate stands at 60-70 percent. Most of the elderly cannot read. Consequently, education is highly valued and desperately needed to help this country improve its future economic and social outlook.

High school graduates in El Salvador have a chance to get jobs in shops and offices. If they go on to the university, they can be teachers, translators, businesspeople, health care workers, doctors, lawyers, professors, priests-and middle class parents.

Students realize that they are the future of El Salvador, however, they also know that without an education they will go nowhere. So they make the necessary sacrifices. Some of them take three buses to get to school. Most work during the day and study late at night while their parents-and sometimes their extended family-have two and three jobs at low pay to help their children obtain an education.

With a national population of nearly 7 million, it’s estimated that hundreds of Salvadorans struggle to cross into El Norte every day to join over 2 million of their countrymen who are already here. They are the ones who wash dishes, wait tables, and clean toilets in American cities, slaughter and slice carcasses at the meat packing plants of the Midwest, or perform endless hours of stoop labor as migrant farm workers in the Southwest, Florida, New York and Michigan.

In a recent study by the University of Central America in San Salvador, 42 percent of Salvadorans said they would leave their country to go to the United States if they had the chance. These people, who make $1-3 per day, are so desperate to feed their families that they are willing to risk a crossing. Some pay $6,000-7,000 for a coyote’s help, which requires a 50 percent down payment and must be paid back within three years at 20 percent interest. To raise this money, they put up their land, farm and house as collateral. When they finally make it to the United States (sometimes it takes two or three tries), all members of the family from both sides of the border face being separated from each other for unknown periods of time.

The current right-wing ARENA government denies that the country has a poverty problem; it wants the country to look good after getting such bad press during the 1980’s war. It also makes a lot of promises to improve health and education but then fails to follow through. Consequently, funds that poured in from abroad during and since those terrible war years are drying up as needs elsewhere in the world take priority.

Before the war started in 1980, 14 families of El Salvador owned most of the country’s wealth. Now the remaining eight families are privatizing the country’s resources and making trade agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which greatly advantages U.S. corporations.

President Bush’s call for a Coalition of the Willing in 2003 yielded only El Salvador’s participation from Latin America despite negative public opinion, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. (Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic sent a small number of troops at the beginning of the war but pulled them out in spring 2004.) Of the 1300 Salvadoran troops sent, five have been killed. Last March when President Bush visited Latin America, he didn’t even bother to stop by in El Salvador to thank them for their service.

This article appeared in CommonDreams.org on Friday, November 16, 2007

An Armistice Day Legacy

2007-11-12T00:13:00.001-05:00

Elly and Bob Nagler grew up an ocean apart but their commitment to peace has strengthened them throughout their 50+ years of marriage. Neither of them stands out particularly in physical appearance. In fact, you might even miss seeing them at local peace vigils, but they’re there-every week, twice a week-since October 2002 before the war in Iraq began. And there’s no mistaking their devotion to the cause of peace and the depth from which it comes in all that they do and say. It began through their fathers who both fought in World War I.

Elly Nagler’s father was a Bavarian soldier and a French prisoner of war. He had hopes of becoming a priest but the war dashed that ambition.

“He had blood on his hands,” said Elly, “and didn’t feel he could be a priest.” Instead, he became a writer, an organizer and eventually secretary for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), a non-governmental inter-faith organization founded in 1919 in London as a response to World War I. IFOR was the first organization of its kind in the world to be committed to peaceful nonviolence in favor of healing and reconciliation.

According to its Web site, “the founders of IFOR formulated a vision of the human community based upon the belief that love in action has the power to transform unjust political, social and economic structures.”

Elly’s father established a branch office for IFOR in Vienna and operated from there until 1938 when Hitler took over Bavaria; then the office had to close. After the war he re-established IFOR. Today IFOR flourishes with a presence in more than 40 countries.

Elly’s sister, Hildegard Goss-Mayr, later took over her father’s work at IFOR and became an international figure. A prolific writer and speaker, the Vatican asked Hildegard for her input on its important encyclical, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), published in 1963. She has also conducted training programs on nonviolence in Latin America, Africa and Asia and has served as a consultant to leaders like Cory Aquino of the Philippines. As a result of her work, Hildegard was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

In comparison to her father and her sister, Elly doesn’t consider herself a peace activist, but rather an “agitator for change.”

“I’m just a human being,” said Elly, the mother of four daughters and a son. “We should have a responsibility for each other and do all we can to make the world a better place.” She thinks that the only way to settle conflict is through nonviolence and living up to our possibilities.

Actually, Elly is no slouch when it comes to peace activism. In 1947 she joined the Quaker youth work camp movement in Austria, Sweden, Mexico and El Salvador to help rebuild houses in villages and to provide assistance in refugee camps that harbored Russians, Germans and Ukrainians.

“I lost half of my heart in El Salvador,” said Elly. It’s probably one of the reasons the Naglers were so active in the Sanctuary movement of the mid-1980s when they helped harbor a Salvadoran family.

Bob Nagler grew up in Iowa City, the son of a famous hydraulics engineer who consulted on the Hoover Dam and several Mississippi River projects. When he returned from World War I, he vowed always to make the world a better place through his work as well as through his commitment as a peace activist for the Methodist church. He wanted to rid the world of war and to promote nonviolence as a peaceful solution.

In 1933 Bob attended the Epworth League’s summer youth camp on Clear Lake, Iowa, a part of the Southern Methodists’ religious education program. The theme that year focused on peace and the Oxford Pledge. The children learned that the pledge was derived from the world’s first peace movement started in England during the late 1920s as a response to the disastrous global conflict of 1914-1918. Students at Oxford University had taken a pledge that they would “not fight for king and country” as their fathers had in World War I where 40 million people died, half of them civilians.

Bob was among half of the 200 kids at the camp who signed the peace pledge. Part of the reason the pledge has “stuck with him” to this day was because his father died less than three months later, leaving ten-year-old Bob, his mother and two younger siblings.

“My father was my hero,” said Bob who sought to remember him by making the Oxford pledge his father’s legacy to him. Eventually Bob became a Quaker. His father had worked with them and he knew they lived lives of peace and nonviolence. Besides, they helped other people in need, like his own family.

In 1943, while in the middle of his junior year of college, Bob was drafted into the Army. However, because of his Conscientious Objector status, he was assigned to a Civilian Public Service base camp in North Dakota under the direction of the Quakers. He later volunteered for a starvation experiment in Minnesota and an infectious hepatitis project in Philadelphia, where he became a human “guinea pig” and contracted hepatitis. His work with the Army led him to a career in science and he eventually became a chemistry professor and helped to start a chemistry program at Western Michigan University.

During his tenure at the university, Bob participated in a USAID science training program in Nigeria for a couple of years, which he found to be “the most fulfilling thing I ever did.” He worked with the top five percent of all students there.

During the Vietnam War, Bob advised WMU students on Conscientious Objector status and participated in peace demonstrations. Of course, he was under F.B.I. observation for his activities, but he was undeterred. Bob has also worked with the local and national environmental councils and with the Physicians for Social Responsibility. Today, he writes monthly letters to his congressman, a Republican who always votes with the president. Nevertheless, Bob continues to convey his concerns about the war in Iraq and about science, particularly those issues involving the environment and stem cell research. What keeps the Naglers going after all these years? That’s easy, they say: the consistency of their actions for peace and their concern for the world.

“You can make an impact on the world with your persistence in doing what you think is right,” said Bob. “It is symbolic of your conviction.”

Bob dreams that the United Nations will evolve into the meaningful peace organization it was meant to be.

“I’m not discouraged or encouraged about the world’s situation,” he said pointing out that there are now hundreds of organizations all over the world working for peace, educating people and publishing books on peace.

“Some of this will rub off. Peace activists are responding to those who make war more readily. They know that violence escalates itself and they want to stop it. They realize that other people have rights and opinions and that peace is a constructive activity.”

“You can never give up on hope,” said Elly, who has seen the total devastation of cities in her youth-twice-through two world wars.

“But we Americans and Europeans need to come off of our superiority complex,” said Elly. “We need to realize that human beings have value. We take it for granted that total inequality exists because we don’t know how to go about making the world where we see people as our equals. This will take much education.”

This article appeared in CommonDreams.org on Sunday, November 11, 2007