"The human race is at a crossroads.
We must choose either the paradigm of money values and violence,
or the paradigm of life values and nonviolence... can we save humanity
from itself?" --Alice Walker
The Lysistrata Project is dedicated to bridging the spiritual, social
activist and women's communities, and
through our combined economic and creative power humanizing the
global agenda.
Begun in June 2002
in the wake of both the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center
and the Bush administration's bombing of Afghanistan, The Lysistrata
Project recognizes that in the widening spiral of escalation
now gripping our world, each act of violence, blamed on the previous
one, necessarily begets another. "An eye for an eye,"
Gandhi said, "leaves the whole world blind."
We are part of the rising tide for true Peace born of the balance,
both inward and outward, of our feminine and masculine energies.
People over profit, woman's full worth over controlled reproductive
function, and partnership/ diplomacy over war/dominance are outcomes
calling for a heroic alliance.
We honor the hundreds of millions of people globally who actively
sought to prevent the attack on Iraq. And we stand with those
committed to ending its occupation, the Bush experiment with American
empire, the indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians,
the dehumanization of war prisoners, U.S. troops and Iraqi fighters
alike, and in particular the targetted rape of women.
The Lysistrata Project, guided by Gandhian principles of nonviolence
and economics, seeks inventive solutions. As a resource, it features
pages on fiscal and societal costs of war, and the ties between
oil, multinational corporations, the subordination of women and
the desecration of our Earth --and how to transform our world.
"Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion.
It is not for the timid or weak... Non-violence is hard
work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience
to win.”
--Cesar
Chavez
"The motivation underlying our activism for social change
must be transformed from anger and despair to compassion and love.
It is not to deny the legitimacy of noble anger or outrage at
injustice of any kind. Rather, we seek to work for love, rather
than against evil. We need to adopt compassion and love as our
foundational intention, and do whatever inner work is required
to implement this intention. Even if our outward actions remain
the same, there is a major difference in results if our underlying
intention supports love rather than defeating evil."
"If ever the world sees
a time when women shall come together purely and simply
for the benefit of mankind, it will be a power such as the
world has never known."
WE support international cooperation,
diplomacy and an independent United Nations. We reject unilateral
pre-emptive strikes, war for the sake of profit and dominance,
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction including the
use of landmines, the targeted rape of women, and the killing
and maiming of innocent civilians. For these reasons we specifically
reject the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This in no way implies
support for Saddam Hussein whose crimes need to be dealt with
by the International Court of Justice.
WE feel deep concern for the young
men and women serving in the military and support their returning
to their homes safely as soon as possible. We reject policies
that place them unduly in harm's way, and regret all loss of life.
WE support a just and sustainable
economy that recognizes the labor of all workers, including homemakers
and immigrants, and the interests of children, elders and the
displaced. We reject a Darwinian economy that makes expendable
vulnerable segments of society. Because we believe that our strongest
voice is our combined economic power, we call for economic sanctions
against war.
WE support the Constitution of the
United States with its Bill of Rights, including the right to
peaceful dissent, and its system of checks and balances. We reject
its corruption to allow erosion of our civil rights and the dangerous
amassing of power in an unrestrained presidency.
WE support equal representation
and participation in government, the Congress and Assembly, with
a proportionate voice for women and minorities. We reject the
political campaign process dependent on wealth and alliance with
powerful special interest groups.
WE support reproductive rights,
family planning services and sex education for all women and girls.
We reject the patriarchal agenda of strategically managing our
wombs for purposes other than our own. We further acknowledge
that forcing unwanted pregnancies to term, while a general suppression
of the rights of all women, primarily affects poor women. Statistics
show a strong correlation between such reproductive management
and the poverty of women. And throughout history women's wombs
have been managed for the creation of a surplus workforce of low-wage
earners--precisely the same group providing a steady supply
of combat troops.
WE support businesses and corporations
that contribute to and are accountable to society. We reject the
legal structures that allow multinational corporations to wield
powers that exploit workers, pollute the environment, and traffic
in an unscrupulous arms trade that perpetuates war.
WE support a practical reverence
for our planet Earth and the ecological systems that sustain us,
and a recognition that her natural resources belong equally to
all her inhabitants. We reject the destruction of her ancient
forests, the poisoning of oceans and rivers, the maltreatment
of animals, the privatization of water and crop seeds, and the
polluting of the very air we breathe.
WE support a meaningful political
process with debates open to third parties, instant run-off voting
that permits the casting of votes for a first and second choice
of candidates, eliminating both a winner-take-all situation and
the need for run-off elections, and full protection of every citizen's
right to vote. We reject election fraud that robs the votes of
the poor and powerless, and thwarts the will of the people.
WE support an independent news media
committed to the full analysis of local, national and world situations
necessary for decision-making by an informed public, and committed
also to reporting positive news. We reject media dependent on
the dictates of its multinational corporate owners driven by profit,
fear mongering, war propaganda, and sensationalist violence.
WE support a secure and peaceful
homeland for all people, and self-determination for all indigenous
peoples. Without minimizing the struggle for independence of any
other peoples --and because it is central to world peace-- we
acknowledge the long and bitter legacy of persecution and displacement
that tears at the heart of our Jewish and Palestinian sisters
and brothers, and we grieve with both. We call for a Palestinian
state along with the state of Israel, and are thankful for the
many individuals and groups who are working for an equitable solution.
WE support legal and enforced protections
of women's and children's rights. We are deeply sorrowed by the
global trafficking in women and children for forced prostitution,
labor and soldiering, and we reject all violence against women
and children.
WE support equal rights and security
for all. We reject the present "special registration"
policy of the Immigration Service which persecutes and detains
our neighbors of Middle Eastern descent and of the Islamic faith,
and call on all people of conscience to stand with them in solidarity
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Implementing
the vision
The
Lysistrata Project calls for a unified voice for Peace. It espouses
Challenging the media to present balanced reporting. See MoveOn
Media Corps.
Getting
a sense of the size of, and connecting with, those who are increasingly
striving for peace. See Cultural
Creatives (26% of the U.S., 25% worldwide) and visit our
Links.
Calling
for our cities and towns to pass resolutions opposing the PATRIOT
Act with its assault on civil liberties and immigrant rights.
See Cities for Peace.
Increasing
our use of renewable sources of energy and socially conscious
products, and assertively requesting them of manufacturers,
retailers, policymakers, etc.,
refusing to be manipulated into buying gas-guzzling SUVs, and
conserving
energy. See Earth and Life
after the Oil Crash.
Exercising,
and encouraging others to exercise, our right to vote.
Widening
our use of the Internet as a grassroots organizing tool, sharing
free or low cost website technology
resources to encourage new voices, and methodically linking
compatible sites to expand our presence on the Web.
Inventing
persuasive, inviting and humorous methods of withdrawing
our consent as natural means to walking our talk while also
swelling our numbers.
Educating
ourselves and others in the devastating cost
of war on our communities, and developing a budget
respectful to women.
Raising
our voices and the visibility of our actions for creating a
world in balance. Creating an International
Bill of Rights.
Participating
in "Peace Days"
-- one-day, multiple-day and on-going time-outs from consuming,
driving, working, etc., engineered to promote unity, to court
media attention, and to gain direction and momentum.
Calling
for legal reform of corporate structure, and boycotting offending
corporations.
Once
critical mass has been reached --and to the degree to which
each individual is capable-- ceasing consumption of any or all
agreed-upon products, reducing driving and shopping, and generally
withdrawing consent to business as usual.
NEW YORK CITY and SAN FRANCISCO--January 26, 2003 (OTVNewswire)--Two
distinct ventures, each inspired by the iconoclastic heroine of
the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, are taking bold and unique
initiatives to help galvanize the peace movement.
Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata in the third
century BC. The play tells the story of Athenian women who, fed
up with the Peloponnesian War, barricade themselves in the Acropolis
and go on a sex strike to force their husbands to vote for peace
with Sparta. The name of the play's heroine, Lysistrata, means
"releaser of war."
Yes, the forces behind each Lysistrata
Project are women, and though their respective projects were launched
independently of one another, they are spiritually linked - and,
in fact, digitally hyperlinked on their websites.
LysistrataProject.com
The Lysistrata
Project (New York City) is coordinating the first worldwide
theatrical event for peace. On March 3, 2003, actors and other
theater professionals are donating their time and talent to mount
live stage readings of Lysistrata. As of today, more than 150
readings in over 15 countries are planned, from Argentina to Singapore.
LysistrataProject.com
In the United States alone, just about
every state is represented. Many will have readings in more than
one city; and in several cities, actors plan to hold the event
in more than one venue.
Two New York actresses, Kathryn Blume and
Sharron Bower, hatched the idea for the Lysistrata Project earlier
this month. Blume, who earlier had contemplated writing a screenplay
adaptation of Lysistrata, was inspired to create the project at
New York's Theaters Against War (THAW) in December 2002 as the
Bush war machine against Iraq was accelerating.
Kathryn Blume is a long-time actor and
environmentalist. In addition to appearances Off-Broadway, in
regional theater productions and movies, she has worked for environmental
organizations such as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and
Forest Watch. She's also taught yoga, acting, Shakespeare, and
public speaking in schools and venues across the country. Blume
toured Macedonia with a Balkan music group, works as a Life Coach,
and is an ordained Minister with the Universal Life Church. She
divides her time between New York City and Vermont, where she
shares a home with her husband and their emotionally needy cat,
Toast.
Sharron Bower attributes her steely resolve
to coordinate the Lysistrata Project to her politically active
mother, adventurous father, and the strong women she's often portrayed
on stage who stood up against injustice. Since moving to New York
almost four years ago from the American South, she's worked in
television, independent film and theatre. She's also a volunteer
camp counselor, and the Resident Casting Director at The Mint
Theater in New York City. Before attending graduate school in
Texas, Bower worked as an editor at an advertising firm, where
she met her husband, graphic designer Mark Greene.
Less than a month after launching the website,
their project has already snowballed into what promises to be
an international cultural event for world peace. As Blume and
Bower eloquently state, "By its very nature, live performance
fosters not only open communication, but compassion: We see ourselves
reflected in a play, and the emerging human truths remind us how
like one another we all are."
New York's Lysistrata Project is a call
to action, actively encouraging both professional and amateur
actors - and the general public -- to join them on March 3, 2003
by producing or attending a reading of Lysistrata locally, in
every part of the world. Contact Kathryn Blume for planning productions
in New York City (Telephone: 802-233-5856) and Sharron Bower for
planning productions elsewhere (Telephone: 917-655-0926).
LysistrataProject.org
Lysistrata
Project (San Francisco) is 3,000 miles away from New York's
Lysistrata Project but the two undertakings share the same ideals,
if not the same modus operandi. This West Coast venture is an
amazing Internet resource combining the collective energy of three
powerful, contemporary social movements: Women, Spirituality and
World Peace. It's the brainchild of Lisa Dollar, a writer, poet,
spiritual activist and schoolteacher.
LysistrataProject.org
Simply put, Lisa looked at the state of
the world following 9-11 and realized she had to do something.
After a nine-month gestation period - many sacred creations seem
to take 9 months, don't they? - she decided "to construct
something, rather than act in opposition." That "something"
would become LysistrataProject.org.
So in the summer of 2002, Dollar went to
school, but this time as a student. She enrolled in a web design
course at a local community college to learn the bits and bytes
of the Internet. Last fall, she set up her website; and almost
immediately it struck a chord that resonated in the hearts and
minds of like-minded souls around the world.
Dollar's Lysistrata Project calls for an
"heroic alliance" among the millions of men and women
who are helping to create a world of "people over profit,
a woman's full worth over controlled reproductive function, partnership
over dominance." The immediate challenge, however, is to
resist America's pending war in Iraq and current assault on our
civil liberties.
Lisa Dollar was born in Nicaragua and moved
to San Francisco at the age of five. She graduated JFK University
and earned her Masters in Education from the University of San
Francisco. In 1984, she spent two months traveling through Africa
and came back "a changed person, after meeting the generous,
giving people of Malawi, Botswana and Tanzania." In 1990,
she went to the testing grounds at Semipalatinsk in the former
Soviet Union as part of a 3-week international anti-nuclear protest.
In 1991, America's Gulf War "built
up a lot of anger" in her, so in 1992, Dollar went to live
in a small town in Costa Rica through World Teach. There she tutored
English, studied Buddhism, Plato -- even the Bible, the latter
"only out of curiosity," she's quick to add. "Like
the Dalai Lama, my religion is kindness."
The Lysistrata Project (San Francisco)
is today both a catalyst for action and a magnet for some of the
most compelling original content on the web. Written by both men
and women, the articles, action alerts and inspirations bridge
interfaith spirituality with social and political activism.
"Lysistrata is an archetype, an emblem
for women to stand up and be counted," Dollar said in explaining
her website's namesake. It reflects "the huge swelling of
women stepping out, speaking up and beginning to take action in
one way or another. From that, women and men will be more in partnership."
You can contact Lisa Dollar at the Lysistrata
Project (San Francisco) via Email.
And Finally, Kudos to
the Playwright
Lest we forget, the writer who first put
pen to papyrus to create the story of Lysistrata was Aristophanes
who, along with Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, is considered
one of the giants of Western theater. Born in the 440s BC, Aristophanes
is the most famous writer of Greek comedies. He lived in Athens
through the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) and died in the 380s
BC. Of the 44 comedies he wrote, eleven survive, including Lysistrata,
from which its protagonist speaks the following lines:
"We need only sit indoors with painted
cheeks, and meet our mates lightly clad in transparent gowns of
Amorgos silk, and perfectly depilated; they will get their tools
up and be wild to lie with us. That will be the time to refuse,
and they will hasten to make peace, I am convinced of that!"
And that, dear friends, is the Heart of
the matter.
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Bobby Heart is a contributing writer
and editor at Oasis TV. Title
illustration is by Barbara Watermann Peters. The bust of Aristophanes
is from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Photo collage created
by Humberto Robles from various sources.
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A Hopi Elder Speaks
"You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh
Hour,
now youmust go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
And there are things to be considered ...
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader."
Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said,
"This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now
very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the
middle
of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.
And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least
of all,
ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and
journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we've been waiting for."
Oraibi, Arizona
Hopi Nation
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Path to a world free from want and fear
J. Kirk Boyd
Thursday, February 12, 2004
In mid-January, 70,000 people from 50 countries gathered in Mumbai,
India, for the World Social Forum. The discussion of pressing
global issues led to a simple recommendation: We need more rights,
not fewer.
There is nothing new about this approach. Before the United States
even entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt analyzed
what is essential for peace. He distilled it into four basic freedoms
that he presented to Congress in his State of the Union address
on Jan. 6, 1941. Many Americans are familiar with them -- they
are etched in marble at the Roosevelt memorial in Washington:
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and
freedom from fear.
The problem clearly identified at the World Social Forum is that
in the past 50 years, freedom from want has never been realized.
One of the primary reasons for this, which I have witnessed year
after year at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, is that the
United States actively opposes the recognition of economic and
social rights, such as education and health care - - the essence
of freedom from want.
Moreover, the United States gives very little to help remedy
the terrible squalor and misery of billions of people living without
clean water or electricity and with disease and death as a frequent
part of everyday life. As pointed out at one of many scholarly
panels at the forum, the United States ranks 20th among the 22
richest countries when it comes to aid. The internationally recognized
aid target is 0.7 percent of gross national income. The U.S. contribution
is only 0.12 percent -- roughly one-seventh of the goal.
Americans are not a greedy people. So what's wrong? How can one
of our past leaders lay out such a clear path and then have our
government stray so far from it in a manner that is inconsistent
with American character? This answer was also provided at the
forum: The false impression being drummed into Americans by today's
leadership is that there is greater security in weapons and the
military than in freedom from want. The truth is we will never
reach the fourth freedom, freedom from fear, if we rely on the
military alone. We should support a simple "1 percent rule"
whereby the United States directs 1 percent of gross domestic
product to building schools and hospitals as part of the realization
of economic and social rights.
Our international situation is similar to what the United States
faced in 1900, when workers were severely exploited and regulation
was necessary to allow for market competition, but with a bottom
line of protection for basic rights. The same is true now. Capitalism
has prevailed as the world's economic model, which is a good thing,
but we also need to create a new bottom line of protection for
workers and the environment.
The way to create such a bottom line was also discussed at the
forum -- it is through an International Bill of Rights. The content
of this bill has been written by professors from many disciplines
for several years at the University of California; it is now embodied
in a draft booklet created by the International Bill of Rights
Project. The document is patterned after the European Bill of
Rights, which applies in 45 countries.
The Bill of Rights Project booklet was translated into Hindi
and 10,000 copies, along with 3,000 copies in English, were distributed
at the forum. The document, along with its economic and social
rights to achieve freedom from want, could have just as easily
been distributed at the World Economic Forum, a gathering of economic-powerhouse
countries and corporations, in Davos, Switzerland, late last month.
Distributing the document would have been especially appropriate,
because the multinational companies that have a genuine concern
for the well-being of their workers are being severely undercut
by those companies with no scruples.
There is nothing inherently wrong with international business
or with globalization. But unless the World Economic Forum, the
World Trade Organization and other meetings come around to addressing
freedom from want, then we will all spend more and more on the
military (now more than $1 trillion a year) and never achieve
freedom from fear.
J. Kirk Boyd is executive director of the International Bill
of Rights Project (www.ibor.org).
Mothers' Day Proclamation
Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870
Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a
protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their
sons. Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870,
followed by a bit of history (or should I say "herstory"):
......................................
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons
of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a
great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women,
to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that
a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and
at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote
the
alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement
of
international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870
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Mother's Day for Peace
by Ruth Rosen.
Honor Mother with Rallies in the Streets.The holiday began in
activism; it needs rescuing from commercialism and platitudes.
Every year, people snipe at the shallow commercialism of Mother's
Day. But to ignore your mother on this holy holiday is unthinkable.
And if you are a
mother, you'll be devastated if your ingrates fail to honor you
at least one
day of the year.
Mother's Day wasn't always like this. The women who conceived
Mother's Day would be bewildered by the ubiquitous ads that hound
us to find that "perfect gift for Mom." They would expect
women to be marching in the streets, not eating with their families
in restaurants. This is because Mother's Day began as a holiday
that commemorated women's public activism, not as a celebration
of a mother's devotion to her family.
The story begins in 1858 when a community activist named Anna
Reeves Jarvis organized Mothers' Works Days in West Virginia.
Her immediate goal was to improve sanitation in Appalachian communities.
During the Civil War, Jarvis pried women from their families to
care for the wounded on both sides. Afterward she convened meetings
to persuale men to lay aside their
hostilities.
In 1872, Juulia Ward Howe, author of the "Battle Hymn of
the Republic",
proposed an annual Mother's Day for Peace. Committed to abolishing
war, Howe wrote: "Our husbands shall not come to us reeking
with carnage... Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and
patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those
of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs".
For the next 30 years, Americans celebrated Mothers' Day for
Peace on June 2.
Many middle-class women in the 19th century believed that they
bore a special responsibility as actual or potential mothers to
care for the casualties of society and to turn America into a
more civilized nation. They played a
leading role in the abolitionist movement to end slavery. In the
following
decades, they launched successful campaigns against lynching and
consumer
fraud and battled for improved working conditions for women and
protection for children, public health services and social welfare
assistance to the poor.
To the activists, the connection between motherhood and the fight
for social
and economic justice seemed self-evident.
In 1913, Congress declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother's
Day. By then, the growing consumer culture had successfully redefined
women as
consumers for their families. Politicians and businessmen eagerly
enbraced
the idea of celebrating the private sacrifices made by individual
mothers. As
the Florists' Review, the industry's trade jounal, bluntly put
it, "This was a
holiday that could be exploited."
The new advertising industry quickly taught Americans how to
honor their
mothers - by buying flowers. Outraged by florists who were seling
carnations
for the exorbitant price of $1 apeice, Anna Jarvis' duaghter undertook
a
campaging against those who "would undermine Mother's Day
with their greed." But she fought a losing battle. Within
a few years, the Florists' Review
triumphantly announced that it was "Miss Jarvis who was completely
squelched."
Since then, Mother's Day has ballooned into a billion-dollar
industry.
Americans may revere the idea of motherhood and love their own
mothers, but not all mothers. Poor, unemployed rmothers may enjoy
flowers, but they also need child care, job training, health care,
a higher minimum wage and paid parental leave. Working mothers
may enjoy breakfast in bed, but they also need the kind of governmental
assistance provided by every other
industrialized society.
With a little imagination, we could restore Mother's Day as a
holiday that
celebrates women's political engagement in society. During the
1980's, some
peace groups gathered at nuclear test sites on Mother's Day to
protest the
arms race. Today, our greatest threat is not from missilies but
from our
indifference toward human welfare and the health of our planet.
Imagine, if
you can, an annual Million Mother March in the nation's capital.
Imagine a
Mother's Day filled with voices demanding social and economic
justice and a
sustainable future, rather than speeches studded with syrupy platitudes.
Some will think it insulting to alter our current way of celebrating
Mother's
Day. But public activism does not preclude private expressions
of love and
gratitude. (Nor does it prevent people from expressing their appreciation
all
year round.)
Nineteenth century women dared to dream of a day that honored
women's civil activism. We can do no less. We should honor their
vision with civic
activism.
Ruth Rosen is a professor of history at UC Davis.
Reprinted with permission
Because you just know it's not all toxic war
and BushCo and homophobic senators, right?
By Mark Morford,
SF Gate Columnist
Friday, May 2, 2003
So you look straight out into that winking sunset or up at that
star-gashed sky or over at that frolicking goofy mutt in the park
or at that funky yellow Mini Cooper or deep into the rich burgundy
flesh of that goblet of wine or over at the soft gorgeous rhythmic
rise and fall of your lover's chest as s/he sleeps and you think,
this is proof, isn't it?
This is proof that there's something more, something richer and
more divine and far, far more profound and enthralling and cosmic
and worthy and wet and delicious about this damnable existence,
right? You can just feel it, that divine kick, that lick, that
juice? Of course you can.
You just know, in other words, that this can't be all there is.
Surely, you think, it's not all smirking inarticulate presidents
and gutted economies and bogus wars and international resentment,
factories belching venom into the sky and the oceans with decreasing
federal restriction and increasing corporate glee.
Surely it's not all rabid psychopatriots and fear-happy Bible
huggers and homophobic Republican senators promoting their tyranny
of sexless ignorance, garbage-food conglomerates consciously poisoning
the population with toxic foodstuffs far more full of synthetic
goo and Agent Orange by-products and bioengineered rat dung than
actual food from which the body can draw life and energy and funk
and satisfied karmic burps.
You think: No way can it be all about thuggish 8 MPG SUVs and
inexplicably dying sea otters and 45 percent of the country actually
believing Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for 9/11. Can
it?
Millions of people invoking the name of God as justification
for war and hate and death, more homeless, more poverty, more
rampant population growth, more bitch-slapped civil rights, political
corruption and bizarre viral disease and Dick Cheney making you
question the very definition of sympathetic animate biped?
Because it's just so easy to forget. It's so easy to let the
crush and rush and chain-saw babble of the world, of the major
media's prepackaged hysteria, overwhelm your senses and numb your
id and pile-drive your innate ability to look, really look at
the world around you, and ultimately let them effectively asphyxiate
what you deeply sense to be true.
Not simply that everything is connected. Not simple that there
is a throbbing pulsing extant ever-present scientifically proven
energetic vibration to every damn thing on the planet, animate
and inanimate, breathing or not, each and every organism radiating
forth its sacredness and its profanity and just waiting for you
to raise your consciousness just a little so you can receive your
divine epiphanic ass-slap.
It's not just that. It's that you, right now, at this moment,
are much less removed from those pulsing vibrational things than
They want you to believe. You are closer than you think.
Here is the basic formula: The more They get you to ignore and
detach from and hurl sticks of dismissive ignorance at that divine
interconnectedness, the more you feed the common tyranny of fear,
the collective cultural moan, and the easier it is for corporations
and the government and the masters of televised dread to convince
you to buy into, say, a noxious war. Or toxic fast food. Or ultraviolent
entertainment. Or Celine Dion.
Conversely, the more you work to feel nature, imbibe it, soak
up that juicy interconnectedness like wine into a mattress, suck
up that vibrational hum and awe and kiss, the more you realize
the value of protecting and preserving and treading lightly, actually
taking the time to taste your food, integrate with those objects,
feel that breath of your lover. Simple, really.
And, hence, the less you require of the material world. This
is what scares them the most. This is why They don't want you
to notice, to feel, to remember, or to question their motives.
Because the less you believe that everything around you is just
a tedious lifeless resource to be consumed and shrugged off, the
less you feel the need to share in the massive force-fed belief
that we are here to devour as much as possible, as quickly as
possible, and blow the living crap out of everything that gets
in our way.
And then you take the idea one step further. You realize that
by soaking up that interconnected juice and raising that vibrational
consciousness just that little bit, on a day-to-day basis, you
are directly and immediately affecting everything around you,
inspiring it, them, us to do exactly the same.
The final kicker: It's all accessible right now. All you gotta
do is ask. Invite it in. Literally. Just ask.
Want to be healthy? Strong? More open and lickable and less bitter
and baffled and cynical? Ask for it, place some divine intent
behind it and breath it in and imagine what it would feel like
to radiate health and sexual vibrancy and self-defined joy and
really cool taste in shoes. That's how you start.
Because this is the biggest collective delusion of all, that
you can't get at it, that it's so much wimpy tofu-hugging BS,
so much fluffy New Age psychobabble. What a convenient excuse
that is to remain wallowing and acidic and humming at a simplistically
low, want-based pitch, happily drunk on the disinfo They want
to sell you. It's just too easy. And lazy.
And it does require work. It takes some concentrated and open-hearted
effort to raise that awareness, to tune in on that level, sift
through the bogus media and healers and teachers and pretentious
yoga classes, gurus, smarmy inane Chicken Soupy books to find
the authentically divine heat and rush and thrust.
You gotta get off your ass. You gotta question everything. You
gotta see the world anew, always, every moment, to progress and
evolve and vibrate higher. And, to be sure, it can be a total
divinely annoying pain in the ass.
But, really, when you get right down to it, what else is there?
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Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday
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The following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of
resignation
to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career
diplomat
who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca
to Yerevan.
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing you to submit my resignation
from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position
as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March
7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included
a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service
as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign
languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars
and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and
theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its
values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.
It is inevitable that during twenty years
with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and
cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that
sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and
I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But
until this Administration it had been possible to believe that
by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding
the interests of the American people and the world. I believe
it no longer.
The policies we are now asked to advance
are incompatible not only with American values but also with American
interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us
to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s
most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days
of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and
most effective web of international relationships the world has
ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger,
not security.
The sacrifice of global interests to domestic
politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and
it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have
not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic
manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The
September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around
us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time
in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather
than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration
has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting
a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic
ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public
mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism
and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a
vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military
and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from
the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much
damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined
to do to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really
our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction
in the name of a doomed status quo?
We should ask ourselves why we have failed
to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary.
We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our
world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override
the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were
not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan
is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to
rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have
we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel
is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that
overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After
the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and
Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia
to follow where we lead.
We have a coalition still, a good one.
The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to
American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest
allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would
be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism.
Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the
swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies
this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior
officials. Has “oderint dum metuant” really become our
motto?
I urge you to listen to America’s
friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed
of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends
than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even
when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that
the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a
strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership.
When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time
to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly
that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security,
and justice for the planet?
Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect
for your character and ability. You have preserved more international
credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something
positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving
Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far.
We are straining beyond its limits an international system we
built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations,
and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively
than it ever constrained America’s ability to defend its
interests.
I am resigning because I have tried and
failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent
the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic
process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small
way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better
serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the
world we share.
(Adapted from his writings and public statements
by Clayborne Carson)
Sunday, February 23, 2003
On a beautiful afternoon in 1959,
Coretta and I journeyed from our hotel in Beirut to take a plane
for Jerusalem. After about two hours in the air we were notified
to fasten our seat belts -- we were beginning to descend for the
airport in Jerusalem. Because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, this
city has been divided.
And so this was a strange feeling -- to go to the ancient city
of God and see the tragedies of man's hate and evil which causes
him to fight and live in conflict.
Israel's right to exist as a state in security
is incontestable. At the same time the great powers have the obligation
to recognize that the Arab world is in a state of imposed poverty
and backwardness that must threaten peace and harmony. Until a
concerted and democratic program of assistance is affected, tensions
cannot be relieved. So there is a need for a Marshall Plan for
the Middle East.
At the heart of the problem are oil interests.
As the American Jewish Congress has stated, "American policies
in the Middle East have been motivated in no small measure by
the desire to protect the $2.5 billion stake which U.S. oil companies
have invested in the area." Some Arab feudal rulers are no
less concerned for oil wealth and neglect the plight of their
own peoples.
The solution will have to be found in statesmanship
by Israel and progressive Arab forces who, in concert with the
great powers, recognize that fair and peaceful solutions are the
concern of all of humanity. Neither military measures nor a stubborn
effort to reverse history can provide a permanent solution.
As I said in my Nobel Peace Prize Lecture:
Nations are not reducing, but rather increasing, their arsenals
of weapons of mass destruction. The proliferation of nuclear weapons
has not been halted. The fact that most of the time human beings
put the risk of nuclear war out of their minds because it is too
painful does not alter the risk of such a war. Man's proneness
to engage in war is still a fact, but wisdom born of experience
should tell us that war is obsolete.
If we assume that life is worth living,
that man has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative.
In a day when guided ballistic missiles carve highways of death
through the stratosphere, no nation can claim victory in war.
A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous
legacy of human suffering, political turmoil and political disillusionment.
A world war, God forbid, would leave only smoldering ashes as
a mute testimony to the human race whose folly led to ultimate
death. If modern man continues to flirt unhesitatingly with war,
he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno even the
mind of Dante could not imagine.
It is not enough to say we must not wage
war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must
shift the arms race into the peace race.
In 1967, when I took my stand against the
war in Vietnam, I recounted that I had lived in the ghettos of
Chicago and Cleveland, and I knew the hurt, the cynicism and the
discontent. As I walked among the desperate, rejected and angry
young men, I told them Molotov cocktails and rifles would not
solve their problems. I tried to offer my deepest compassion while
maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully
through nonviolent action.
But they asked, and rightly so, "What
about Vietnam?" They asked if our own nation wasn't using
massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about
the changes it wanted. I knew that I could never again raise my
voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without
having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence
in the world today: my own government.
In 1957, a sensitive American official
overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the
wrong side of a world revolution. This need to maintain social
stability for our investments . . . tells why American helicopters
are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American
napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against
rebels in Peru. . . .
It is with such activities in mind that
the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. He
said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will
make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice
or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role
of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to
give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense
profits of overseas investments.
When machines and computers, profit motives
and property rights are considered more important than people,
the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism
are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause
us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and
present policies. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily
on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. The Western arrogance
of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing
to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hands
on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling
differences is not just." This business of burning human
beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans
and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins
of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and
bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically
deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love.
A nation that continues year after year
to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social
uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and
most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this
revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish
to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit
of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.
When people think about bombing Iraq, they see a picture in their
heads of Saddam Hussein in a military uniform, or maybe soldiers
with big black mustaches carrying guns, or the mosaic of George
Bush Sr. on the lobby floor of the Al-Rashid Hotel with the word
“criminal”. But guess what? More than half of Iraq’s
24 million people are children under the age of 15. That’s
12 million kids. Kids like me. Well, I’m almost 13, so some
are a little older, and some a lot younger, some boys instead
of girls, some with brown hair, not red. But kids who are pretty
much like me just the same. So take a look at me—a good long
look. Because I am what you should see in your head when you think
about bombing Iraq. I am what you are going to destroy.
If I am lucky, I will be killed instantly,
like the three hundred children murdered by your “smart”
bombs in a Baghdad bomb shelter on February 16, 1991. The blast
caused a fire so intense that it flash-burned outlines of those
children and their mothers on the walls; you can still peel strips
of blackened skin—souvenirs of your victory—from the
stones.
But maybe I won’t be lucky and I’ll
die slowly, like 14-year-old Ali Faisal, who right now is on the
“death ward” of the Baghdad children’s hospital.
He has malignant lymphoma—cancer—caused by the depleted
uranium in your Gulf War missiles. Or maybe I will die painfully
and needlessly like18-month-old Mustafa, whose vital organs are
being devoured by sand fly parasites. I know it’s hard to
believe, but Mustafa could be totally cured with just $25 worth
of medicine, but there is none of this medicine because of your
sanctions.
Or maybe I won’t die at all but will
live for years with the psychological damage that you can’t
see from the outside, like Salman Mohammed, who even now can’t
forget the terror he lived through with his little sisters when
you bombed Iraq in 1991. Salman’s father made the whole family
sleep in the same room so that they would all survive together,
or die together. He still has nightmares about the air raid sirens.
Or maybe I will be orphaned like Ali, who
was three when you killed his father in the Gulf War. Ali scraped
at the dirt covering his father’s grave every day for three
years calling out to him, “It’s all right Daddy, you
can come out now, the men who put you here have gone away.”
Well, Ali, you’re wrong. It looks like those men are coming
back.
Or I maybe I will make it in one piece,
like Luay Majed, who remembers that the Gulf War meant he didn’t
