This is the last year of the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World 2001-2010. I was reminded of the concept of a culture for peace this week while watching a Charlie Rose interview with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (Charlie Rose June 9, 2010) He spoke of the various paths to peace between Israel and Palestine. He spoke of Israeli security. However, he also spoke of a culture of peace that was now dominant in the West Bank.
He said that a culture of peace has spread among his people, but that continued occupation could make them step away from this rationality. He spoke of the establishment of security that has provided an environment conducive to economic development. They teach peace in schools and preach peace in the mosques. According to Abbas, Palestinians on the West Bank have moved “from a culture of violence to a culture of peace.”
It is not possible to imagine a better symbol of the miserable condition of the United States today than an oil company destroying a huge swath of the American ecosystem, society and economy, while the President sits by helplessly, saying that he is meeting with experts in order to find out “whose ass to kick.” Obviously, Obama should have seized all the equipment that BP had available to plug the leak, deputized their engineers, brought in the US navy and coast guard, and spent as necessary to deal with the problem within days, or even hours of the original spill, when it became clear that BP was in over its head.
That is what Lincoln did in 1861 when he took control of the railroads and telegraph lines around Washington DC, what Wilson did in 1916 when he nationalized the defense industries, what Roosevelt did in 1941 when he seized an aviation plant, and again in 1944 when he seized Montgomery Ward, it is what Truman did in 1947 when the government took control of the steel industry, in a sense it is what Reagan did in 1980 when the government fired the air controllers. These acts were all controversial but that is what strong Presidents did when facing threats no less severe than those in the Gulf today.
Why hasn’t Obama done anything like that? Ultimately the answer depends on understanding his individual character, but there are at least four large conditioning factors that will help us understand, if not the man, then the event.
Herman Vaske (left) and Dennis Hopper in "The A-Z of Separating People From Their Money"
Dennis Hopper had an unfortunate gift for self-marginalization. He played the buffoon, the drunk, the druggie, the sex addict whose foolish behavior obscured a serious sensibility. When he died on May 29 at the age of 74 from prostate cancer, his life was once again in chaos. On his deathbed, he was divorcing his wife of 18 years, getting a restraining order to keep from seeing her. The mainstream writers, with their unfailing instinct for the superficial, remembered him as a “Hollywood bad boy,” a “rebel,” a “hellraiser.” The New York Times memorialized him for portraying “drug-addled, often deranged misfits.”
But this official record distorts, suppresses and marginalizes what the mainstream doesn’t want to see in Hopper’s work. It confuses his social and political critique, most notably in “Easy Rider,” with intentionally bizarre roles such as the psychopath Frank Booth in “Blue Velvet.”
More importantly, the mainstream writers entirely omitted some of Hopper’s most interesting and sustained efforts. In the late 1990s, he narrated and acted in three separate films stretching over nine hours of viewing time made by a German director who you’ve probably never heard of. Not only are Hermann Vaske and his films unknown in the U.S. but you can only get one of these films here – and then only on VHS and only from specialty video stores. (In Berkeley, CA, Reel Video; in San Francisco, Le Video.) It’s the first of the Hopper and Vaske trilogy called “The Fine Art of Separating People from their Money.”
In May of 2010, a group of northern New Mexico middle school students helped to train the 2nd 45th Agricultural Development Team of the Oklahoma National Guard techniques of organic permaculture farming. The youngsters showed troops how to milk goats, clean eggs and care for bees in preparation for their deployment to Afghanistan in September, 2010. The three week training was coordinated by the Pojoaque, NM-based Permaculture Institute.
These children from my community are the only youngsters who have ever trained US troops.
June 8 witnessed perhaps the most unusual political campaign battle connected to the same-sex marriage debate: a Muslim state legislator vs an ordained Christian minister. The Muslim, Ako Abdul-Samad, had the backing of a pro-LGBT rights organization, while his opponent Clair Rudison, Jr. got his biggest donation from a social conservative political fund.
My report on the story is at ILLUME Magazine, a Muslim American news magazine that’s doing ground breaking work in bringing a Muslim American perspective to professional journalism. You can read the story here.
Here at my nest at Tikkun Daily, a comment on the significance of this story:
Edwin Rutsch just sent me this link to a video he took of Michael Lerner at a recent event. If you want the one minute version of what the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) is about — the elevator pitch — go to minute 3:15 below, and go to around 5:50 for Michael’s take on moving social energy towards hope and love. Later in the piece he outlines the ESRA (Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the constitution) and the Global Marshall Plan, the two key proposals of the NSP that are a focus of our DC conference this weekend.
Michael’s work — and this video is a good example — constantly challenges me to think about the differences between personal spiritual transformation and collective activism for creating a caring world. They are related but distinct, and exactly how they relate is not easy to understand.
When you ask “spiritual” or religious people how the world will change, the most common answer is some version of “one person at a time.”
Baldies of the world, unite! We can now go to the People’s Republic of China, even from Taiwan.
Does "bald" equal "dangerous"?
Most men who are genetically “chrome domed” are concerned about how their natural tonsure will affect romantic prospects. It turns out that visa restrictions are a possibly more pressing problem.
Press service AFP reports that the People’s Republic of China has lifted its ban on visas for bald travelers from Taiwan:
The rule imposed by the southern Chinese city of Xiamen barred bald people from applying for one-year multiple-entry permits before it was cancelled earlier this year, according to Taiwan’s Travel Agent Association.
“It would probably have raised the question of discrimination if Chinese customs officials were to ask visitors to remove their wigs,” said Roger Hsu, a spokesman for the association.
This is good but strange news. Good that the cause of equality, non-discrimination, and acceptance of “hair pattern diversity” has been advanced. But strange that such a ban was in place at all. What gives?
I resisted reading it because who has time for wacky nonsense? Oil is spilling, Obama is making obeisance to corporate “realities”, children are dying by their usual daily tens of thousands, we’re putting on a conference about it all in DC, starting tomorrow — and if you can’t get there Friday try Sunday for the rally and memorial service for those who died in the flotilla attack outside the White House at 11 AM to 1:30 PM — and then this comes up:
What if the Shakespeare legacy is a charade designed to conceal the author’s true identity? And what if the real playwright was a Jewish woman who dared not acknowledge her authorship in Elizabethan England?
Last night when my brain was too fried to read anything serious I dipped in and found such a well written piece I’m a convert already. Must have been the “dark lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets who wrote it all! Lots of good reasons to think so. How did the lad from Stratford pick up all that detailed stuff about Italy, falconry, music, and much more that Amelia Bassano Lanier, the converso Jewish woman others have thought might have been his dark lady, had at her fingertips? How is it the guy who wrote about smart women didn’t even teach his own daughters to read? Maybe she wrote it all and he was her cover as well as her lover. There’s the problem of The Merchant of Venice, of course: that takes a little bit of arguing. But then there are the secret identifiers put in the plays after his death that point to her! Read on.
Michael Nagler, veteran author and educator about nonviolence, yesterday gently critiqued the way the Gaza aid activists responded to the attack on their boat by the Israeli military.
It is still hard to say exactly what happened when passengers aboard the Turkish vessel, the MV Mavi Marmara, clashed with Israeli commandos as they rappelled onto the boat from helicopters. Had the soldiers been firing live ammunition? The point is that even if they were – while terribly difficult – the passengers could have resisted non-violently by refusing to comply with the soldiers’ demands without making any attempt to injure them.
This point apparently did not go unnoticed by the larger flotilla aid movement, who responded non-violently to the boarding of the MV Rachel Corrie this weekend.
He understands how hard it is not to defend oneself when attacked, with whatever weapons come to hand:
Violence is almost a knee-jerk reaction in most of us, and is reinforced by individuals and groups at most levels of society – including our governments. Non-violence, to be sure, resonates with the deepest core of our being; the scientific evidence for this is impressive. But it is so deep that without systematic practice it will not come to the surface when we really need it. This is why the peace movement must be alert and well trained to contain outbreaks of violence in its midst.
So training for nonviolence “as Gandhi often said … requires, if anything, more training than violence.” Read the rest here.
You probably heard or read that we at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives, as part of our conference this weekend in Washington D.C. (info: www.spiritualprogressives.org/conference) will be holding a memorial service for those killed on the Gaza Aid Flotilla last week, as well as prayers for healing of those who have been wounded (including Israeli soldiers who, for no fault of their own, were sent on this “fool’s mission” by the arrogant and militarist leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak), as well as prayers for the release of Gilad Shalit by Hamas, and release of thousands of prisoners now held by Israel, many of them never even charged with a crime, and most never given a jury trial.
Though convened by Tikkun, the Memorial service led by Rabbi Arthur Waskow and Rabbi Michael Lerner will also have Christian prayers presented by Rev. James Winkler (chair of the Board of Church and Society of the United Methodists of America) and Rev. Ama Zenya of the United Church of Christ, and by Sayyid Syeed of the politically moderate Islamic Society of North America. It will take place in Lafayette Park across from the White House from 11-1:30 as part of our larger rally supporting Obama to BE The OBAMA MOST AMERICANS THOUGHT WE ELECTED in 2008.
Let me explain my motivation. I am totally opposed to Hamas and support the nonviolent overthrow of their regime in Gaza, not by Israelis bombing or starving the people of Gaza, but by the Palestinian people themselves. I am opposed to the Occupation of the West Bank and the blockade on Gaza, in part for humanitarian reasons, in part because as someone deeply committed to Israel’s security, I believe Israel will be far safer when it has worked out a just solution for the Palestinian people than it is now. That will take a whole transformation of consciousness on BOTH SIDES, and as the more powerful military power, Israel needs to take the first steps in the direction of reconciliation by dropping the strategy of military domination and embracing instead a strategy of atonement and generosity.
Boudica, played by Alex Kingston for British TV in 2003
If I had known what it would be like to pore over and over historical accounts of military strategy and weaponry and then attempt, imaginatively, to place myself in the midst the horror and chaos of battle, I might not have planted a certain hint in Volume One of The Maeve Chronicles. Now I am reaping what I sowed: the child Maeve bore (and had taken from her by force) grew up to be Queen Boudica who led several Celtic tribes in an uprising against the Roman occupation in 61 CE. In Volume Four, Maeve is in the thick of it.
Apart from my determination to complete Maeve’s epic adventures, what keeps me going is the knowledge that this almost two thousand year old story is also contemporary — a fatal clash of interests and cultures, betrayals and humiliations, violent retaliation that spins out of control, slaughter of the innocent and not so innocent, and the costly victory of an invading, colonizing force over a native population. Sound familiar? It may not be a timeless story. (ie, there may have been times on earth when warfare was intertribal and did not involve significant imbalances of power, wealth, and technical prowess.) But it is timely. The news tells us this story in one form or another every day.
The two halves of that headline don’t seem to go together. Weeping seems very personal and emotional, while thinking and acting systemically seems very abstract and intellectual. But when many relatively decent people–like many of us reading this blog–benefit from a system that causes other people at a great distance away to be wounded, starved, and killed, then we must weep with those people; and thinking systemically will make us weep the more, for understanding how often our systemic blindness stops us from seeing the effects our system has. These thoughts come from reading an email from our friend Fred Bronfman.
In my exploration of the BDS movement a week ago here, I talked about Margaret Atwood, who had chosen to not boycott the Dan David prize of which she was co-winner. She’s written a piece for Haaretz about her experience of Israel, that is a profound and eloquent exegesis of her Israeli experience. She admits that going into the issue she had “strayed into the Middle-eastern neighbourhood with a mind as open as it could be without being totally vacant”, and says, not unfairly, “The whole experience was like learning about cooking by being thrown into the soup pot.”
So what does she conclude about Israel?
The Israelis I met could not have been more welcoming. I saw many impressive accomplishments and creative projects, and talked with many different people. The sun was shining, the waves waving, the flowers were in bloom. Tourists jogged along the beach at Tel Aviv as if everything was normal. But… there was the Shadow. Why was everything trembling a little, like a mirage? Was it like that moment before a tsunami when the birds fly to the treetops and the animals head for the hills because they can feel it coming?
I’d been told ahead of time that Israelis would try to cover up the Shadow, but instead they talked about it non-stop. Two minutes into any conversation, the Shadow would appear. It’s not called the Shadow, it’s called “the situation.” It haunts everything.
The Shadow is not the Palestinians. The Shadow is Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, linked with Israeli’s own fears. The worse the Palestinians are treated in the name of those fears, the bigger the Shadow grows, and then the fears grow with them; and the justifications for the treatment multiply.
Come to our Tikkun/Network of Spiritual Progressives conference in DC starting a week today if you possibly can! One of our major themes is how to build in social and environmental responsibility to the very idea of a corporation. We are proposing the ESRA, the Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the constitution. The goal is to rid American democracy of corporate money, and to require large corporations to act responsibly. This will only be possible if something drastic is done to counteract the influence of corporate money in elections, which the Supreme Court gave the green light to in January when it ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in elections.
Tikkun Daily reader Jan Garrett just sent us this post that makes the case for why it is imperative to bring the economy under democratic control, even though the cynical realists say it can’t happen.
An Alternative to Business As Usual
By Jan Garrett
Jan Garrett is a Unitarian Universalist, a member of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and a professor of philosophy at Western Kentucky University.
The present and likely future devastation caused by the Gulf Oil spill has almost everyone’s attention, and rightly so. That this is “an event of Blblical proportions” is increasingly recognized. Yesterday Garrison Keillor described “looking at live pictures on the BP Web site taken by an underwater robot of the greasy waters of the Gulf, and how’s that for a Metaphor of our Times?” (Chicago Tribune June 2, 2010) Today Jim Wallis, in his blog GOD’s Politics, declares that we are “witnessing a massive despoiling of God’s creation.”
It’s clear that Keillor and Wallis feel the pain of this moment and recognize that we have come to this point as a result of a thousand factors – political, economic, cultural, ideological. I don’t disagree with their sense of the importance of the event, but I want to strike a contrarian note with respect to where they agree.
What could the United States have done with 2.5 Trillion Dollars?
The plan was perfect. Slash taxes for the wealthy, cutting 2.5 trillion out of the nation’s wallets, and spend another trillion or two on war, and by the time eight years are over, the nation will seem like it is teetering on the edge of insolvency. If anyone says that perhaps the giant tax cuts were a mistake, you sagely warn that “You can’t raise taxes during a recession!”
Then, start screaming about the deficit and demand that social programs be slashed.
In case you haven’t see this yet, David Grossman, award-winning Israeli author and peace activist, whose son Uri was killed in the 2006 war in Lebanon, wrote this response to the flotilla attack that happened May 30, 2010:
I am in the vegetable garden pulling weeds (it is always a good year for weeds.) I am glad to be away from the computer with my hands and feet in dirt. I am thinking: there is no such thing as a virtual vegetable garden. I uproot some mustard greens that are crowding out the peas. In an hour or so we will eat them for dinner. I am wishing everyone in the world could have a chance to eat something he or she has grown.
On this edible planet where we all eat (and/or are eaten), food connects all life. How we grow it, how we transport it, how we prepare it and how we share it matters. As a woman, I sometimes feel responsible (read guilty) for the invention of agriculture. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, being able to stay in one place with the babies, being able to store surplus food for winter or other difficult conditions, being able to feed more people.
