by Joe Kandra, Kathie Malley-Morrison, & Pat Daniel
Tag: fear-mongering
A plea for sanity and virtue, Part 2
by Stefan Schindler
Kathie MM
Part Two: Resurrecting the Wisdom and Spirit of Helen Keller, Dorothy Day, Molly Ivins, Martin Luther King, and Howard Zinn
In The United States of Amnesia, governed by Weapons of Mass Dysfunction, we daily witness America’s devolution into barbarism.
Therefore, it is better to swim against the current than to be swept over the cliff.
Collective Awakening is ever more necessary for the restoration of sanity and virtue in a republic apparently intent on self-destruction.
Insofar as the Republican Party is now wholly lost to the forces of sexism, racism, militarism, sophistry, empire, xenophobia, economic apartheid, ecological suicide, fear mongering, war making, science denial, and religious extremism – i.e., a polymorphous perversity of elephantiastical greed, bigotry and delusion, committed to the total overthrow of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal for the American people – and insofar as multi-party pluralism in a two-party system sold to the mega-wealthy is now and in the near future off the table, our best hope for a brighter future is for the Democratic Party to regain its heart and soul; both of which were lost at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, when it betrayed the Civil Rights and Peace Movements it was obliged to embody in the spirit of our assassinated hero, Robert F. Kennedy.
Karl Marx urged egalitarian economics, arguing that each person has a right to the material security which allows for self-realization and creative service, free from oppressive constraints. Buddha taught the same.
Which is why the Dalai Lama consistently teaches “a common religion of kindness,” committed to nuclear disarmament, global peace, ecological pragmatism, economic security for all, and lifelong free education in a planetary community where the institutions of society serve schools (and not, as at present, the other way around). What the Dalai Lama urges and teaches is nothing less than a Global Enlightenment Project.
Also, it might be worthwhile to remind people that if they have a Social Security card, they are a card carrying socialist.
There are today strong voices in Congress urging a restoration of sanity and virtue. They remain too few, and the forces arrayed against them are strong indeed; but those voices are a beacon of hope, and they deserve our support because they recognize the following:
People before profits = The Sermon on The Mount = The Golden Rule at the heart of The Torah = Heart Centered Rationality = Ahimsa = “Right Vocation” in Buddha’s 8-Fold Path = Covenant = universal health care = Ecosocialism.
Tell the Republican National Committee & Democratic National Committee: End despicable negative campaigning
Here is a petition that I have just published on Change.org . You can sign it at:
https://www.change.org/p/chairmen-tell-the-rnc-dnc-end-despicable-negative-campaigning?recruiter=971406&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive
The national corporate media are flooding our homes with messages that belittle and demean rival candidates. Moreover, the most negative messages flaunt common decency, instill prejudice and hatred, and promote violence; many of those messages are coming from candidates for office that you are supporting. Watch out for this candidate, we are told; he will take away your right to defend yourself. “Hate and fear Muslim refugees; choose to wipe them all out,” they bluster. “Build walls, exclude those Mexican rapists from our blessed country.”
We know millions of Americans are sick of these messages, sick of a political process that blatantly corrupts democratic ideals, reducing democracy to its lowest common denominator. Free speech of the sleaziest kind.
Larry Shushansky, in a Huffington Post essay, argues convincingly that what we need in politics today is “decent, fair, and respectful conversation instead of accusations, attacks, and anger.”
Dear Chairmen, please help the democratic process purify itself. Provide your candidates with some guidelines illustrating standards of decency and respect for human rights. Save democratic ideals. Don’t bury them in sludge.
Letter to:
Chairmen
Chairmen Republican and Democratic National Committees
Sign this petition and be the first to add your comment.
Principled moral arguments (Moral engagement, part 3)
Since World War II, several wars involving the United States (for example, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) have been launched with initial public support. However, these conflicts lost their popularity when more and more Americans became aware that their government had been less than honest in linking invasion and occupation with noble principles such as bringing democracy to brutalized people.
Rejecting the pseudo-moral arguments for these wars, many people have embraced principled moral arguments–asserting, for example, that war is a violation of the Golden Rule, that no human being has the right to decide who will live and who will die, or that war and torture violate the hard-won international human rights agreements that grew out of the unrestrained violence of World War II.
Recognizing and rejecting pseudo-moral arguments and living by life-affirming principles is a challenge, particularly in a fear-mongering environment, but millions do it.
Tomorrow is the International Day of Peace. Established by a United Nations resolution in 1982, the celebration begins with the ringing of the Peace Bell at the U.N. The Day is often celebrated with greater enthusiasm and hope in other parts of the world than in the U.S.
Do your part this year. Consider the words of Miss Nida Ashfaq, member of the International Young Catholic Students (IYCS) from Pakistan, “Peace is not the absence of war; it is respecting and accepting each other and promoting human rights.” Then light a candle and formulate your own moral argument in favor of peace. Please share your thoughts with us.
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology