Book reviews – Page 3 – Engaging Peace

TO ENGAGE OR NOT TO ENGAGE – THAT IS THE QUESTION

Posted on January 7, 2019March 9, 2021 by kathiemm

by Stefan Schindler

Part One: YESTERDAY’S STORM AND TOMORROW’S RAINBOW

There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music. – John Keats

Fifty years after President Eisenhower launched a multi-trillion dollar arms race with the Soviet Union, the Cheney-Bush Administration (in a version of “the boy who cried wolf”) saw fit to shout the greatest and most dangerous lie in American history, claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and repeating – day after day, week after week, in the post-9/11 rush to vengeance and preemptive war – “Mushroom cloud! Mushroom cloud! Mushroom cloud!”

Thus did Cheney-Bush – and their cabal of Gingrichian sycophants, aided by a cheering mainstream news media – bring to fruition the nightmare envisioned in Bob Dylan’s 1963 tour de force, “Masters of War.” Dylan sings, and the lyrics still resonate:

You’ve thrown the worst fear / that can ever be hurled:

fear to bring children / into the world.

In the dawning of the year 2019, it remains to be seen whether President Donald Trump will also escape punishment for his narcissistic and multitudinous lies, for his continuation of American militaristic violence, and for his Reagan-Cheney-Bush-like crimes – economic and ecological – against the American people and the planet.

In what Gore Vidal called “The United States of Amnesia,” the Orwellian ignoration of the citizen population continues unabated. For example:

I go to the store and buy some stamps. The clerk hands me a packet. Each stamp has an American flag on it. In the lower left hand corner of each stamp is written “USA Forever” – a truly insidious slogan. Nothing lasts forever. Not a season; not a life; not an empire. George Carlin said: “That’s why they call it the American dream. You have to be asleep to believe it.”

In 1821, John Quincy Adams warned that America should not go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy,” for in doing so, “she might become the dictatress of the world, [but] she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”

In the late 1890s, Mark Twain witnessed America’s imperial acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in the Spanish-American war. Twain responded with an observation not taught in school: “America’s flag should be a skull-and-crossbones.” Then he added: “America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home.” Adams and Twain understood that empire and democracy are mutually exclusive.

Lyndon Johnson said in 1964 that he did not want “a wider war” in Vietnam, even as he was lying about events in the Gulf of Tonkin and planning the invasion that President Kennedy refused to launch. Richard Nixon said he would bring The Vietnam War to an early end with “peace and honor,” yet disgraced himself with a heartless disregard for peace and an utter lack of honor, becoming the first American president to resign from office.

Due to the lies and depredations of Johnson and Nixon, the American people grew increasingly suspicious of their political leaders. That distrust deepened into cynicism when President George W. Bush’s claim – that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction,” which he then used as a pretext for war – proved to be an outrageous lie. And now, alas, Donald Trump inhabits the White House, proving once again that a Nixonian neurotic and Bush-whacking ideologue can become the most powerful and most dangerous man in the world.

Yet all is not lost, not hopeless, not without redemptive possibilities. Despite the forces of obstruction, the American landscape is filled with a multitude of brave, inquisitive, vocal, active, dedicated justice-seekers and peacemakers. They recognize that they are not alone, that solidarity is our only hope, and that their collective voice indicates something like A Renaissance of The Renaissance. They – We! – know who Tom Paine was, and why he wrote “Common Sense” and “The Rights of Man.”

We know that John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed for their courage of conscience; and because we refuse to let their lives and deaths be in vain, we carry the torch they lit for a sane and better world. We dare, with John Lennon, to Imagine. We know that there are millions around the world who feel the same, and who are also doing their part to bequeath to a new generation the world of peace and beauty they deserve. Accordingly, we shall not despair; we shall not relinquish hope; and we shall indeed do whatever is necessary to restore America’s tarnished ideals to their once and future glory, for the sake of all humanity, and for Mother Earth and all her blessings.

Stefan Schindler

…………………….

Stefan Schindler is the co-founder of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection; a Board Member of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey; and author of America’s Indochina Holocaust: The History and Global Matrix of The Vietnam War. His forthcoming book is entitled Buddha’s Political Philosophy.

Fostering hope and other super powers, Part 2

Posted on December 24, 2018March 9, 2021 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

Here are a few of the stories Pavlovitz shares in his book, Hope and Other Superpowers, when inspiring readers regarding “the hero in all of us”:

Terri, a dental hygienist by day who participates in the Portland (Oregon) Superheroes Coalition , which travels to children’s hospitals and group homes to bring some cheer to the children there;

David and his family, who devote themselves to projects like making food for homeless families, organizing local work projects, and attending church volunteer events;

Ryan, co-founder of Culture of Good , who has dedicated his life to bringing people together who want to help the planet in tangible ways.

Inspiring hope, inspiring people to work for a better, more compassionate, more just community can happen at any level of society. You probably know people like the ones Pavlovitz describes. Perhaps you yourself have superpowers that you have not even recognized yet use generously to help others. In our current series of personal stories from peace and social justice advocates—see, for example, here and here and here —we are featuring superheroes who contribute to engaging peace, among other causes.

Please share your story with us.

Why don’t you speak for yourselves, GretaThunberg admirers?

Posted on December 17, 2018January 5, 2019 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

I have sent the link to the Greta Thunberg speech shown above to dozens of people, and they are enthusiastically full of admiration for her. [See last week’s post about her.

She is a hero, a superhero, the child who shall lead us.

But you can speak for yourselves too. A good way to gear yourself up for activism,if you are not already into it heart and soul, is to read Hope and other superpowers: A life-affirming, love-defending,butt-kicking world-saving manifesto by John Pavlovitz. The book is all that it says it is in that great title and subtitle.

Here’s a quote from John’s introduction:

“Many of us are lamenting the despair and divisiveness around us, aching for something more redemptive but no longer sure how to get to it from where we stand. We’ve watched helplessly as people have grown emboldened in the land of bigotry they’d once kept concealed. We’ve witnessed unabashed hatred regularly trending nationally. We’ve seen new fractures develop or old wounds reopen in our families, marriages, and friendships…We’re all desperately straining for something to sustain us—something to right all that feels so wrong around us…. (p. xiii)”

Yes. Many of us are looking for superheroes to inspire us, to remind us that there are good people out there fighting against racism, bigotry, and environmental degradation, and fighting for peace, human rights, and the survival of the environment in which all life can be sustained or destroyed.

The good news that Pavlovitz brings us in his world-saving manifesto is that we all have it in us to be superheroes. We all have superpowers that can help us recognize, elicit, and activate our own superpowers and to make the kind of difference we see as needed in these frightening times. In the next few posts, I will share some of Pavlovitz’s engaging ideas as to how to achieve this.

Our histories, ourselves, Part 2

Posted on November 30, 2018March 9, 2021 by kathiemm

National Day of Mourning Plaque, Plymouth, MA. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

By Rev. Dr. Doe West

The story of Native Americans/American Indians continues, with some glimmers of hope for the future.

Having failed to fully record the genocide, contemporary U.S. governments have decided to recognize 562 Native American tribes. To be included on those rolls, you must have an ancestor who was processed and counted–and most likely ended up on one of the reservations created while treaties were being broken and peoples moved like cattle across lands unknown to them.

As with all people who are deemed different and set apart, a number of Native Americans, ancestors of the survivors who may not be recognized as such today, voluntarily removed themselves from that processing and relocation. Within that group were my Grandmother’s family members.

The tales my grandmother told me regarding my lineage included ancestors hiding in the woods of the Hudson Valley area and coming into newly integrated groups of various tribes surviving there (Lenape/Delaware, Mahican, Wappinger, and others who entered that area) as well as African Americans, Cajuns, French Canadian trappers, and other European traders) in villages that developed on the Hudson river. This beautiful mélange of cultures created what I consider my “true American mutt heritage.”

When the Missionaries learned that my Grandmother’s parents were both dead, they came to “save her from the Savages.” To do so, they placed her in a white woman’s home in Peekskill, NY, as a kitchen slave.

The recognition of the history that Andrés Reséndez recounts in his recent book, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America” is growing, as more and more people learn about and recognize the truth of this aspect of a generally unreported part of “American history. But whether or not painful facts are recognized or understood, the facts are the facts. And for my grandmother and for me, America’s historical degradation and enslavement of native peoples was and is a fact of life.

When you read this story, you may suspect that it bears a tone of anger that I did not feel in writing it. Instead, as an academic, I speak with a voice that is intended to be one of education.

November is Native American Heritage Month.

Learn the truth.
Understand what was done.
Know that tribal affiliation and lineage does not exist only on ledgers on dusty shelves in official buildings in Washington, DC.

I trust my Grandmother’s oral traditions, passed on to me along with other true tales of her life that persist above and beyond the records made by those who enslaved her.

I celebrated my heritage throughout this month and I celebrate the next steps in our attaining all the rights and privileges owed me on the basis of my citizenship and my humanity in the land of my ancestors.

And I welcome the coming waves of immigrants and invite them to learn more about the true heritage of all the peoples who have struggled to build a decent life in this land of ours.