Jimmy Carter – Engaging Peace

TOWARD 2020 AND BEYOND

Posted on January 17, 2019January 17, 2019 by kathiemm

by Stefan Schindler

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love. – William Sloane Coffin

Engaging Peace has a “comments” section that occasionally inspires stimulating dialogue. The editor of Engaging Peace has invited me to share my reflections on recent comments on my posts in, as it were, a main-page post.

I can’t see governments, including our own, fading away anytime soon (as Karl Marx hoped and predicted). Nor do I see in the near future a triumph of the proletariat, on either a national or global basis, establishing a civil civilization – a culture in which swords have been turned into plowshares, misogyny and racism at last relics of the past, and the common good of humanity resting on a firm foundation as cooperation takes precedence over competition. But I am not without hope that something sane, humane, and glorious may emerge from the mess we are now in.

America’s national redemption must come from the people, and their Judeo-Christian-Bodhisattva good-works on a daily and enduring basis. For me, that also means perpetual self-educating, increasingly honest socio-political discourse, and electing leaders brave enough to shatter the status quo. Embracing Thich Nhat Hanh’s notion that “To be is to inter-be,” I believe that love is the heartbeat at the core of our identity, and that, therefore, agape – universal brother-sisterhood – is our prime obligation as being-in-the-world-with-others, which Martin Buber expressed as “I and Thou.”

I believe that educated citizen activism is our best hope for survival. Given what’s left of our endangered democratic choices, that includes an obligation to vote for what is usually and clearly “the lesser evil.” For example, I believe that if Jimmy Carter had had a second term as president, the Reagan-Bush packing of the Supreme Court with Republican ideologues would not have happened; and, therefore, the judicial coup d’état in December of 2000 (the Supreme Court cancellation of further vote-counting, and their unconstitutional appointment of George W. Bush as president) would not have occurred.

I also believe that if Al Gore had assumed his rightful place in the White House, 9/11 would not have happened (with its subsequent multi-trillion dollar wars on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, constituting yet another of America’s “crimes against humanity”).

Also – and of profound importance! – President Gore (having already published his book Earth in the Balance) would have transformed America into a leading light in the world’s long overdue attempt to rectify destruction of the biosphere, and confront, with all due pragmatism and rapidity, the globally increasing dangers of climate change.

In short, who sits in the White House, in Congress, and on the Supreme Court, does make a difference. Yes, the system is rigged; but we can – with intelligence and determination – mitigate the damage, and by voting wisely, perhaps steer the ship of state toward democratic ecosocialism, fiscal pragmatism, economic security, and lifelong health-care and education for all.

Change will not come without intense struggle. We are in a battle for the soul of our nation, and I shudder to think that Thomas Paine and Martin Luther King lived and died in vain. The Bill of Rights is increasingly threatened, but it is hardly obsolete, and it is certainly worth preserving.

I do not know if we will, collectively, survive the next 50 years. I suspect that “civilization” as we now know it will indeed collapse. But I also believe that we have a socio-political obligation to steer a path through the trauma to a brighter global culture for all future generations.

We are blessed to live in a society where freedom of speech still exists, where the right to vote still offers hope, and where protest has not yet become a crime.

So I’ll end here with a potent, poignant, intentionally satiric and ironic quote:

Oh no! [Fox News] has discovered our vast conspiracy to take care of children and save the planet. – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; newly elected Democratic member of the House of Representatives.

FROM DARKNESS AT NOON TO THE GLOW OF HOPE, Part 1

Posted on July 9, 2018 by kathiemm

A Female demonstrator offers a flower to military police on guard at the Pentagon during an anti-Vietnam demonstration. Arlington, Virginia, USA. Oct 21, 1967. In the public domain. Author: S.Sgt. Albert R. Simpson.

The Tragic Triumph of the Reagan Counter-Revolution

Against The Spirit of the Sixties, Now Counterbalanced by

the Rekindling of Candles in the Wind

by Stefan Schindler

The 1960s were a time of hope in America and the world. A time of questioning and protest. A renaissance of The Renaissance. The blossoming of a counter-culture committed to peace, freedom, and creative expression.

The Spirit of The Sixties carried over into the 1970s. America and the world saw the continuation and growth of the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the anti-nuclear movement, the environmental movement; and, of course, the feminist protest against sexism, perhaps best captured in the bumper sticker: “Women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition.”

Alas, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, as were the leaders of the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.

Richard Nixon was elected president twice; then Gerald Ford pardoned him for crimes against humanity.

Jimmy Carter was convinced by his national security adviser to start a covert war against the newly elected social democratic government of Afghanistan, which led to a Russian counter-intervention, which led to America’s creating, funding, and arming of Al Qaeda.

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party saw citizen activism as a “crisis of democracy.” Ronald Reagan applauded American-financed terrorists as “freedom fighters,” and launched the Bush-whacking of FDR’s socialist inspired “New Deal” for the American people.

Bush The First continued Reagan’s attack on America’s middle class and poor, as well as continuing Reagan’s wars abroad, saying, after America shot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 civilians, including 66 children: “I will never apologize for America, I don’t care what the facts are.”

Newt Gingrich, in one of history’s greatest ironies, was elected Speaker of the House, successfully championing lies, insults, and divisive sophistry as the road to power during the failed presidency of Bill Clinton, whose Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, said that half a million dead Iraqi children from American bombings and sanctions was “a small price to pay” for freedom, although Iraq was in fact no threat to America’s national security, and Saddam Hussein had long been Ronald Reagan’s favorite dictator.

The Cheney-Bush administration lie-launched America’s Second Vietnam War, this time in the Middle East, convincing Congress to pass the least patriotic legislation in American history, called “The USA Patriot Acts.”

Obama wasted eight years compromising, betraying his base, and succumbing to a cowardice of conscience that made possible the tragic triumph of a new Trumpeting of racism, sexism, militarism, economic apartheid, and fanatical pseudo-patriotism.

Recalling Jeremiah’s warning that “Ye shall reap the whirlwind,” I’m reminded of another bumper sticker: “God is coming; and, boy, is She mad.”

Just for a change: Messages to live by

Posted on March 10, 2017March 9, 2017 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

As currently envisioned, the U.S. Peace Memorial will consist of twelve walls, or facets, containing engraved peace quotes from famous Americans (including, for example, Noam Chomsky, Martin Luther King Jr., Jeanette Rankin, Margaret Mead, Albert Einstein) as well as lesser-known figures.

Today, for your continuing inspiration, we share some of the quotations under consideration. Embrace them.

“We must devise a system in which Peace is more rewarding than War.”

Margaret Mead (1901-1978).

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969).

“It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968).

“The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).

“Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought.”

Helen Keller (1880-1968).

“No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder kill and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slavemasters over dark people …”

Muhammad Ali (1942-2016).

“[t]here was never a good War, or a bad Peace.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).

“I believe that the killing of human beings in a war is no better than common murder.”

Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

“I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”

Mark Twain, pseudonym for Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910).

“We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

Jimmy Carter (1924- ).

“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

George S. McGovern (1922-2012).

“How can you make a war on terror, if war itself is terrorism?”

Howard Zinn (1922-2010).

“… all war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal, …”

John Steinbeck (1902-1968).

“… he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”

Thomas Paine (1737-1809).

THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA, Part 3

Posted on December 5, 2016December 3, 2016 by kathiemm

by Stefan Schindler

Disturbing facts from American history, continued:

11 – The first 9/11 occurred on September 11^th, 1973, when Nixon and Kissinger overthrew the elected government in Chile, the longest running democracy in South America, beginning’s America’s subsequent support of the 16-year Pinochet dictatorship and slaughter of liberal activists.

12 – The Carter administration launched a terror campaign against the newly elected social democratic government of Afghanistan in 1979, leading to the Russian counter-intervention in 1980, which led to Reagan’s eight-year creation, arming and financing of Al Queda to fight “the godless communists” occupying Afghan territory and preventing the installation of American pipelines for the transport of Iraqi oil.

13 – In the first five years of his administration, Ronald Reagan transformed America from the largest creditor nation in the world to the largest debtor nation in the world.

14 – Ronald Reagan conducted an eight-year terror campaign against the social democratic government of Nicaragua, which had finally overthrown 40 years of American supported dictatorship.

15 – The Bush-Cheney wars against Iraq and Afghanistan were an updated repeat of the lies that led to America’s Indochina Holocaust (euphemistically called The Vietnam War to obliterate memory of U.S. devastation of Laos and Cambodia).

16 – The Bush-Cheney Administration’s continuation of Reagan’s attempt to unravel Roosevelt’s New Deal for the American people, with its regulatory safeguards, led directly to the all too predictable economic meltdown of 2008: the largest stock market crash since 1929, from which millions of Americans, and many people around the globe, are still suffering.

17 – The single greatest factor leading to the outbreak of World War Two was the U.S. stock market crash of 1929. That crash had ripple effects around the globe, including the implosion of Germany’s already impoverished economy. In desperation, the German people elected a charismatic lunatic named Hitler.

18 – America’s neutrality during the so-called Spanish Civil War (actually a coup d’état) from1936 to1939 – the only place in Europe where ordinary citizens were actively fighting the rise of fascism – led to the overthrow of Spanish democracy by a cabal of Hitler-supported bankers, bishops and generals, and persuaded Hitler that he could continue Nazi expansion into other parts of Europe, including Czechoslovakia and Poland.

19 – American banks and corporations (including Ford and General Motors) helped Hitler build his war machine, and sanctioned Hitler’s persecution of German socialists (hoping that Hitler would invade Russia and put an end to the Soviet experiment in communism).

20 – Japan was begging to surrender in late 1945, asking only that their emperor, Hirohito, be left in place as the nation’s nominal leader. Truman refused to accept Japanese surrender because of that single condition. No American troop invasion of Japan was necessary to end the war. Truman dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki primarily as a warning to the Soviets. After Japan’s surrender, Hirohito was allowed to maintain his nominal political title.

21 – During World War Two, the American air force was ordered not to bomb Nazi war-making factories owned by Ford and General Motors. After the war, the CEOs of Ford and General Motors were awarded millions of taxpayer dollars in compensation for “collateral damage,” instead of being tried and convicted for treason.

Co-founder of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a recipient of The Boston Baha’i Peace Award, and a Trustee of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey Foundation, Dr. Schindler received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston College, worked one summer in a nature preserve, lived in a Zen temple for a year, did the pilot’s voice in a claymation video of St. Exupery’s The Little Prince, acted in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and performed as a musical poet in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City. He also wrote The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Awards for Howard Zinn and John Lennon. He is now semi-retired and living in Salem, Massachusetts.