In December 2013 post entitled Schell: Complete Disarmament is the only Sane Path, we wrote about an excerpt from Jonathan Schell‘s 1982 book The Fate of the Earth which forms the nineteenth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace .
Below are the obituaries from the AP and Democracy Now! Continue reading RIP Jonathan Schell, anti-war anti-nuke, pro-Occupy activist
One of our goals on this site is to catalog the hidden history of pacifists. This article does so beautifully.
The Genius of Erasmus | War Is A Crime .org.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, who lived from October 27, 1466, to July 12, 1536, faced censorship in his day, and has never been as popular among the rich and powerful as has his contemporary Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli. But at a distance of half a millennium, we ought to be able to judge work on its merit — and we ought to have regular celebrations of Erasmus around the world. Some of his ideas are catching on. His name is familiar in Europe as that of the EU’s student exchange program, named in his honor. We ought perhaps to wonder what oddball ideas these days might catch on in the 2500s — if humanity is around then.
In 1517, Erasmus wrote The Complaint of Peace, in which Peace, speaking in the first-person, complains about how humanity treats her. She claims to offer “the source of all human blessings” and to be scorned by people who “go in quest of evils infinite in number.”
democracynow.org – Tony Benn, the former British Cabinet minister, longtime Parliament member and antiwar activist, has died at the age of 88. He was the longest-serving member of Parliament in the history of Britain’s Labour Party, serving more than half a century. He left Parliament in 2001, saying he planned to “spend more time on politics.” In 2009 he appeared on Democracy Now! to talk about the war in Afghanistan and Britain’s fight for a nationalized healthcare system.
“You’ve got to judge a country by whether its needs are met and not just by whether some people make a profit,” Benn said. “I’ve never met Mr. Dow Jones, and I’m sure he works very, very hard with his averages. We get them every hour. But I don’t think the happiness of a nation is decided by the share values in Wall Street.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE8CI012O1I]
__________________________________________________________________________
10 of the best Tony Benn quotes – as picked by our readers | Politics | theguardian.com. Continue reading RIP Tony Benn, Lifelong War Critic
The final chapter in The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace is the 2001 International Appeal of Nobel Prize Laureates, Poets, Philosophers, Intellectuals and Human Rights Defenders for an Immediate End to the War against Afghanistan. This appeal ends the final section of the book: Post-Vietnam to the Present (1975- ) .
The appeal succinctly reiterates the points made in the last two essays. The invasion of Afghanistan fails on two accounts. It did not bring the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice. It is increasing the future likelihood of terrorism against the US.
Since the Appeal is short, and a public document, I have reproduced it below: Continue reading Nobel Laureates: End Afghan War
Happy Valentine’s Day!
The idea of this site is to help bring a little more love into the world. We have been working to create a community space to share the way to a more peaceful life. Our definition of a peaceful life encompasses all areas of our lives.
Since the early days of this site we have been focusing on what it means to be a pacifist, and we will continue to do so. We have also touched on what a shareable economy means; peaceful music and books; how a CSA works; and why vintage jewelry is better than new.
TWL will focus us on exploring what more of what peace means in the rest of our lives, such as what it means to freecycle; to be a vegetarian; a locavore; a community member; to use nonviolent communication; and to clean with vinegar. And more. But first,
What brings peace into your life?
What can you share from your journey?
Please use the comments section to share.
The Tim Wise 2001 essay Who’s Being Naive? War-Time Realism Through the Looking Glass is the penultimate chapter in The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace. This essay continues the Post-Vietnam to the Present (1975- ) section of the book. Wise is an anti-racism educator and author.
His essay complements the previous Arundhati Roy essay War is Peace. While Roy upholds the polite –but firm– criticism of a foreigner, Wise bluntly takes his fellow Americans to task for the Afghan War. As someone who forces Whites to face up to their own privilege in US society, Wise is at ease in ripping apart pro-war arguments in kitchen table language.
The criticism put forth by Roy and Wise reinforce each other by coming to the same conclusions from both external and internal vantage points. Both 2001 essays were written when the Afghan invasion was fresh, and they have proved to be prescient as the Afghan War has dragged on for a dozen years. Reminds me of the just departed Pete Seeger masterpiece, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. Continue reading Wise: War is Naive
The Arundhati Roy excerpt War is Peace is from her .from ‘s 2002 book Power Politics. It form the twenty-second chapter in The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace. This essay continues the Post-Vietnam to the Present (1975- ) section of the book. Roy is an activist and Man Booker Prize winning author. Though, the preceding essays in this book all deal with timeless themes in supporting pacifism, this essay, which centers on the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, is the first essay in the book to feel that it is based on contemporary world politics.
Roy starts the essay with the gamification {the process of turning war into a video game] of the October 7, 2001 US-led attack on Afghanistan. The attack was done without seeking UN approval or even under color of international law. Inverting the expected criticism against her comments, Roy makes clear that she does not take the side of any entity that chooses violence: Continue reading Roy: Afghan War based on DoubleSpeak
