November 2016 – Page 2 – Engaging Peace

Getting it right

Posted on November 24, 2016 by kathiemm

by Kathleen Malley-Morrison

Now is the winter of our discontent, this woeful election year. Unhappiness with the government, frustrations over corruption of democratic processes, fears regarding increasing economic inequality, anger at the multiplying restrictions on prospects and possibilities, and rage at the unfairness of it all have been rife. But today, on this Thanksgiving Day, Americans (most of whom are descendants of immigrants from other lands) have a chance to get things right.

And many people are doing just that. I give particular thanks to all the Americans, of all hues, who are standing by the Native protestors and their supporters at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota.

The nonviolent resistance of the Standing Rock protestors to the planned Dakota Access pipeline, slated to pass through sources of drinking water and sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, is a noteworthy and admirable example of nonviolently standing up against greed, unbridled capitalism, the militarization of civil society agencies, the unwarranted exercise of power by fossil fuel goliaths within the military industrial complex, the rape of the land, racist disregard for human lives, disrespect for laws (including in this case, yet another violation of a treaty), and violation of human rights including the rights of indigenous peoples . Moreover, the protestors are praiseworthy not only for standing up for clean drinking water and human rights but also for promoting the viability of this continent and the planet on which the survival of all peoples is dependent.

Among the groups to which we should be thankful for getting things right and taking risks to do so are:

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, People Demanding Action, Ecowatch, and Code Pink.

I will be thanking all these groups at my dinner today.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA, Part 1

Posted on November 17, 2016 by kathiemm

by Stefan Schindler

America has the largest empire in world history, guarded by a thousand military bases around the world; yet most Americans don’t know there is such a thing as the American empire, even though they’re paying for it. Most Americans don’t know that dismantling the empire would be the single most important step toward world peace and the solving of our ever deepening federal deficit and domestic financial crisis.

Gore Vidal coined the phrase “The United States of Amnesia.” Of course, citizens can’t forget what they never knew. Here are some facts to compensate for the American system of compulsory miseducation, political disinformation, and mainstream news media distortion:

1 – If U.S. naval commander Commodore Perry had not sailed his warships into Tokyo harbor in 1853, forcing Japan to end two centuries of international isolation, Japan could not have industrialized so quickly as to invade China in 1936, bomb Pearl Harbor a few years later, and launch the Second World War in the Pacific.

2 – Mark Twain, witnessing America’s eight-year terror campaign against the people of the Philippines in the so-called “Spanish-American War,” declared: “America’s flag should be a skull and crossbones.” During the Spanish-American war, America never went to war with Spain, but simply took for its own the former Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

3 – American troops invaded Russian in 1918 in an effort to reverse the Russian Revolution of 1917, which overthrew centuries of Tsarist dictatorship and economic apartheid. American soldiers were ordered to side with the remnants of the Tsar’s army, thereby helping create and sustain a devastating Russian civil war, preventing Lenin from instituting democratic reforms, and giving rise to Stalin’s dictatorship. Woodrow Wilson’s invasion of Russia sought to prevent the rise of “social democracy” as a political, egalitarian alternative to capitalism. This agenda was furthered by Harry Truman, who, after WWII, demonized Russia to frighten the American people into paying for a monstrous and unnecessary war machine.

4 – President Truman created an unaccountable national security state in 1947, when he sanctioned a secret government in the form of the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.

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.

Now is the Hour: Moral Engagement Redux 1

Posted on November 14, 2016December 8, 2016 by kathiemm

Engaging Peace began its blogging career by introducing the ideas of psychologist Albert Bandura about moral disengagement and moral engagement . Moral disengagement involves unconscious mental processes that enable otherwise good, caring people to act in inhumane ways—often as a result of deliberate manipulations undertaken by leaders pursuing their own self-serving agendas. Moral engagement processes, by contrast, enable other good, caring people to summon the strength, courage, and moral fortitude to resist the abundant pressures in our societies to behave cruelly and inhumanely.

In the wake of the misery, the anger, the blaming, the fear, and the despair that characterized this election year—along with the elation of some people at the outcome–I am embarking on a quest to review, in a series of brief posts, the mechanisms of moral engagement that might help this country heal its wounds and move in the direction of peace and social justice.

As explained in an earlier post , “Moral engagement requires moral agency–active engagement in resisting pressures and justifications for behaving inhumanely, and proactive efforts to engage in and promote humane behavior. Key contributors to moral agency include humanizing the other, and empathizing with the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the other.”

One major mechanism of moral engagement is the use of principled moral arguments.

Principled moral arguments are dramatically different from the pseudo-moral, spuriously “moral” justifications that some people advocate to convince others that, for example, deadly warfare is the best way to make the world safe for democracy or that assassinating a few potential terrorists is ethically superior to maybe, possibly, perchance risking the lives of thousands of innocent victims (and laws, human rights, and Constitutions be damned!).

Principled moral arguments rest on principles like the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”), Kant’s categorical imperative (“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law”), the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and the messages in favor of love and brotherhood in various Holy Books.

My advice to everyone distressed by the nature and results of this election is to continue to work for a truer and more complete democracy, characterized by the pursuit of peace and social justice, in a morally engaged way. This means understanding, among other things, the difference between principled moral reasoning and the pseudo-moral arguments that attempt to justify harm-doing.

It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

Posted on November 11, 2016December 9, 2016 by kathiemm

Admittedly, the recent election left millions of Americans fearful and in mourning, and millions of others celebrating the apparent ascendancy of White Power, Man Power, American supremacy, the right to carry weapons any damn place you want, and success in telling the power establishment to go to hell in a hand basket.

But democracy is not dead yet, and there’s work to be done. I’ve been heartened by messages from many hard-working, citizen-based organizations gearing up to continue the good fight. We need optimism. Optimism is associated with good mental health. You know when you feel best—not when you are overwhelmed with hate and the urge to hurt and punish but when you have optimism, hope, joy in sharing a worthy task with others.

Here are just a few of the messages that can carry you forward:

“We are an organization that has its roots in fighting J. Edgar Hoover and McCarthyism (DDF), and one that was born to fight the Patriot Act (BORDC). We are used to facing strong adversaries and fighting back with courage and integrity. We won’t quit. I know you won’t either. Stay Loud, Stay Strong.” (Bill of Rights Defense Committee)

“The hardest thing to do right now is to hold on to hope, but it’s what we must do. We should feel our anger, mourn, pray, and then do everything we can to fight hate…. When times get tough, it’s crucial to remember: we are in this together, and when we mobilize, we are capable of the unimaginable. No one man — no matter how cruel or powerful — can take that away.” (The 350.org global climate movement team)

“Whatever your faith or belief, there is a healing power within each of us that must be devotedly applied to this divided nation. We will not resolve our differences by demonization.” (Interfaith Alliance)