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Remembering Ward Morehouse 1929-2012
I have written on this site a great deal about pacifist heroes of the past. Ward Morehouse is a pacifist her owhom I was lucky enough to have worked with.
Even in our corporatized culture, there are still many people to act as guideposts for how to live a life, they are just not publicized. Ward Morehouse is definitely one of those Great people. And I just found out recently that we lost him.
I met Ward in the late 1990’s through The Other Economic Summit North America (TOES). He was the Chair of TOES NA. Before there was Occupy, or even the Battle of Seattle, there was TOES. They would shadow the G8 summit, and put on a conference highlighting a humane vision of the planet’s economy. Ward was so much more than an academic, he was a visionary, leader, teacher, publisher, and activist. The obituary below describes him better than I could.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iWdyH4vWVM] Continue reading Remembering Ward Morehouse 1929-2012
Prasad: The Way to Disarmament
The fifteenth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace contains Rajendra Prasad‘s 1963 essay The Way to Disarmament. Like the recently discussed writings by Merton, Fromm, and Muste, finding the path to peace through disarmament is the focus of Prasad’s essay. Dr. Prasad spent his life working for Indian independence and was the first President of the Republic of India. He wrote the essay a year before he died.
Prasad decries the technological advance of warfare. He found that this “misuse” of science and techonolgy vastly increased the scale of human life that was destroyed, and seperated the destructive act from the realization that human life was being taken. His discussion is immediately relevant to the use of drones to murder today. Prasad looks to his contemporaries for guidance on how to move foraward”
This is what Mahatma Gandhi meant when he said that ultimate nonviolence was only safe defense not only for the individual but for nations. Continue reading Prasad: The Way to Disarmament
“My Guitar Gently Weeps” by George Harrison is the Peace Song of the Day for 5/1 May Day
“My Guitar Gently Weeps” by George Harrison is Peace Song of the Day for May Day, May 1st. The song was first recorded by The Beatles. Today, a phalanx of guitars, marching in the Occupy Guitarmy, of part of May Day celebrations. (Information at the Occupy Guitarmy website: here.) Also the track is in honor of the Duchess’ Tearwater Tea Party for May Day. Harrison credits the inspiration for the song to the I Ching.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hRVu-T73Zo] Continue reading “My Guitar Gently Weeps” by George Harrison is the Peace Song of the Day for 5/1 May Day
Fromm: Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament
The thirteenth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace contains Erich Fromm‘s 1960 essay The Case for Unilateral Disarmament. Fromm was a psychoanalyst and a member of the Frankfurt School. He co-founded the anti-nuclear organization SANE, which as named after his 1955 book, The Sane Society. SANE is now part of Peace Action.
Like Muste and Wallace, Fromm argues that the safest path to security is unilateral disarmament. Not surprisingly, Fromm approaches the discussion from a psychological perspective. To start with he pushes aside the question of whether disarmament is unilateral or mutual. Instead, he reaches for the question of what the reaction of the opposing side will be to disarmament. He rather dryly states that
it is unfortunately true that political leaders can rarely be trusted
Fromm’s purpose is not to demonize political leaders; he argues that the human nature causes them to bifurcate their personal moral beliefs from their morality as institutional leaders. He finds Hitler to be personally immoral, but the Russian [sic] leaders to be moral in their personal beliefs. Continue reading Fromm: Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament
Did you hear about a Gas Boycott Day for April 15th?
Well, some folks are saying Don’t Buy Gas on April 15th, so we can send the oil companies a message, and lower the price of gas.
And, some of us believe it can work. (See a fun video from April 2012 below).
Some folks are having doubts. Though, I say whenever you can use your own spending power to send a message — however personal or small — you should try. Put your money where your mouth is!
Continue reading Did you hear about a Gas Boycott Day for April 15th?
Dance, Recite, and Converse for Earth Day!
For this Earth Day, we wanted to share with you some of the movies, music, and books that have inspired us to joyfully engage in our environmental activism.
Mindwalk. This movie is a favorite of Ian’s. It is based on the book Turning Point by physicist Fritjof Capra. Capra is best know for his book, The Tao of Physics which removes the artificial barriers between religious understanding and scientific understanding. The book, The Turning Point, presented the movie maker’s problem of how to turn a book about the complexity of our ecological problems into a narrative. The solution was to set it in a beautiful place, Mont. St. Michael, France. And set in motion a discussion between a physicist (Liv Ullmann) and poet (John Heard), and a former presidential candidate (Sam Waterston) as they walk through Mont. St. Michael. The narrative form also provided a solution to a lesser problem. There was already a very famous ballet movie called Turning Point, so the Capra’s movie was named Mindwalk to avoid confusion and reflect the new form.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMZ9xwfmNvs] Continue reading Dance, Recite, and Converse for Earth Day!