Can you do what they do? Living Peace and Justice Leaders, Part 4, List 2

Poster at Rededication ceremony, Peace Abbey, July 29, 2018. Reprinted by permission. Thanks to Lewis Randa.

By Kathie Malley-Morrison and Anthony J. Marsella

 There is a new spirit of encounter (e.g., Black Lives Matter; Me Too) in our times, a new spirit of protest against oppression and abuse, evidenced by national and local gatherings among and for women and minority groups!

There is a new spirit of communication and connection among free media critical of government, military, and wealth controls! There is a new spirit of protest against war and militarism, against the wasting of a nation’s wealth on weaponry and endless war!

There is a new spirit of concern for life and land, a concern especially regarding anthropogenic climate changes! Activists are protesting destructive developments and supporting climate change policies to limit Co2 release.

There is a new spirit of determination to expose abuses of privilege and position by select government officials who have politicized and weaponized laws for personal use (e.g., FISA Court).

These changes signal and sustain hope. Hope is the life blood of progressive change. Hope can be suppressed and oppressed, but it cannot be defeated. Hope endures because it is the very essence of life. Regardless of life form and species, hope is the evolutionary impulse to pursue survival, adaptation, and adjustment, free of oppression.

And hope is sustained and enlarged through the work of the brave activists being honored in our fourth list of living peace and social justice activists.

  1. Erakat: Noura Erakat, human rights attorney, writer, activist, specialist in Israeli-Palestinian conflict  
  2. Fisk:  Robert Fisk, war zone Guardian correspondent
  3. Flanders: Laura Flanders, author, journalist,
  4. Frompovich: Catherine Frompovich,  health rights advocate, journalist
  5. Gaynor: Maureen Gaynor,  disability activist, supporter of civil disobedience
  6. Gattinger: Malvin Gattinger, Transcend Media Services staff 
  7. Gold: Ariel Gold, Jewish mother, BDS activist, pro-Palestinian, Code Pink leader.
  8. Gonzalez: Naomi Emma Gonzalez,  leader in youth-led gun control  student movement. 
  9. Haque:  Umair Haque, inspirational writer
  10. Hightower: Jim Hightower, progressive political activist, supporter of sustainable agriculture 
  11. Huerta: Delores Huerta,  labor leader and civil rights activist. Worked with Caesar Chavez in founding United Farm Workers Union
  12. Jackson: Richard Jackson, Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
  13. Johnson: Jake Johnson ,Common Dreams writer
  14. Jones: Preston Jones,  professor, peace activist on American Empire
  15. Kent: George Kent, Teaches human rights, on the Board of Directors of the International Peace Research Association Foundation.
  16. Klare: Michael T. Klare, Five College Professor of Peace & World Security Studies
  17. Kolhatkar: Sonali Kolhatkar, columnist for Truthdig, co-director of the Afghan Women’s Mission
  18. Kunstler: Barton  Kunstler,  Author, Nation of change.  
  19. Laurison: Hannah Burton Laurison, human rights activist.
  20. Lillard: Kwame Leo Lillard, Nashville civil rights leader 
  21. Loladze : Irakli Loladze,  professor, Environment of Food Supply
  22. McKay: Donna McKay, active with Physicians for Human Rights.
  23. McKibben: Bill McKibben, leading environmentalist in USA  
  24. Melamed: Barbara G. Melamed,  psychologist, promotes women’s peacebuilding, mediation
  25. Milton-Lightening: Heather Milton-Lightening international Indigenous Peoples advocate, activist for ending Gaza blockade. 
  26. Mingo: Erika MingoPast President, PSYSR; Racial Justice Action Group
  27. Munayyer:  Yousef MunayyerUS Campaign for Palestinian
  28. RightsMutaka: Christophe Nyambatsi Mutaka  key figure at the Groupe Martin Luther King; promotes active nonviolence,  human rights, and peace,  focuses on reducing sexual and other violence against women.
  29. Nair:  Keshavan NairGandhi scholar 
  30. Neville: Helen A. Neville, Professor, African-American Studies/Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois,  Champaign-Urbana

Please support their efforts and ours.  And vote in November!

Beware the spin!

                                                                                                                                                            By Kathie MM
In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the nation about the threat of the military-industrial complex (MIC) to national security, social justice, and peace. Not only has the MIC become gargantuan since his warning, it has also swallowed up institutions that should be alerting citizens to the persisting dangers identified by Eisenhower.

In 2005, Norman Solomon* warned the nation about the entanglement of the corporate media in an expanded military-industrial-media complex. He provided frightening examples of members of the media cozying up to the military and assuring the public that each new war is good, valiant, necessary, and desirable when pursued by the U.S. government (which, after all, must struggle to line all those pockets that bring it to power).

To Norman Solomon, I sing, in the music and words (with a little editing), of Don McLean:

“Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me

How you suffered world insanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they’ll listen now.”

Sadly, war drums are once again drowning out voices of reason and ethical reflection. The enthusiastic rush of the corporate media to anoint Donald Trump as miraculously “presidential” because he ordered the launching of those “beautiful” missiles towards a site in Syria is a scene right out of 1984.

The day after the first strikes, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) revealed that the corporate media were singing the same old song: Rah, rah for the red, white, and blue.

If you must read the establishment newspapers and watch hyped-up television programs glorifying Trump’s attacks, at least balance out your exposure to the military-industrial-media complex by diving into alternative media:

Read War is the ultimate distraction by Mark Summer.

See what Former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, tells Paul Jay on Real News  .

Learn more about #HandsoffSyria demonstrations .

Listen to the first song (Nasty Man )  Joan Baez has written and recorded in 25 years:

And see what the Friend’s Committee on National Legislation recommends .

*Solomon’s War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (John Wiley & Sons, 2005). The first chapter of the book can be found at WarMadeEasy.com.