The Weekly Watch
Blessed are the Peacemakers
It's Memorial Day Weekend. Why is it we always memorialize warriors, but not those who work for peace? So today let's celebrate those who work for people and planet. I thought it might be fun for everyone to add agents of peace they have encountered in the comments. As we begin it is important to consider that perfection is not a human condition. However some people are drawn into the service of peace because they see the insanity of war. Smedley Butler comes to mind...both a soldier and a peacemaker.
I'm sure many of your are familiar with Smedley Butler, but you may not have seen these...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9OFRdCq56k (47 min documentary)
He was a tenacious soldier, the most decorated officer in the history of the U.S. marine corps…and he detested war. The video describes the government moves and secretive fascist plots that turned this famous general into a campaigner against war.
How Smedley saved FDR from a fascists coup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc6kw6N1_kw (42 min)
The first chapter of his book, War is a Racket.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58pTA2fUxA8 (12 min)
Many soldiers seem drawn toward peace after their service. Recently I've been enjoying the comments and insights of Col. Larry Wilkerson . He is often on the Real news.
https://therealnews.com/?s=larry+wilkerson
Here he is at Ralph Nader's "Breaking through Power" conference speaking on why the US is in a state of endless war...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epa8XquD04Q&feature=youtu.be&t=1412
Medea Benjamin is another person working for peace today. Here she is in a short clip from a couple of weeks ago (video or text) https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/9/medea_benjamin_the_peace_movement_...
and another piece of the same interview including Trita Parsi
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/9/trump_pulls_united_states_out_of
Davis Swanson is also a voice for peace. He been on the real news lately too
https://therealnews.com/?s=David+Swanson (video and text)
He has been working with https://worldbeyondwar.org/ and writes. Here's a recent article
http://davidswanson.org/war-is-love/
Barry Gan, from St. Bonaventure University, suggests the peace movement should:
1.- Focus on local issues.
2.- Focus on Non-cooperation or civil disobedience, not on law breaking and violent confrontation.
3.- Define and pursue a clear alternative.
4.- Offer a choice: Do as I wish, or make me suffer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPIH8oyxgAc (14 min)
He added that Peace activists should recognize that there is good and evil in everyone of us, and that the focus should be not on peace, but on "non-violence" .
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-murder-and-the-meaning-life/...
https://www.wri-irg.org/en/story/2013/nonviolent-strategies-social-change
This is an interesting interview (if you can bear the thought that agencies in our own government may have created the 9/11 attacks to foment a "war on terror") with Christopher Bollyn who suggest 9/11 truth is the peace movement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxg1ie7mCzc (1 hour)
Christopher suggest the war on terror was planned by Israelis decades ago. There is no doubt that the war on terror is a war of terror.
Terror attacks have jumped by a stunning 6,500% since 2002. Everywhere we go we create terror...yes it is indeed a war of terrorism
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32339-focus-despite-14-y...
This article concludes: imagine, there’s no parties—is the best way to build a real opposition. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whither-the-anti-war-mov...
What about the history of the US Peace Movement?
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When I first thought of peacemakers, Gandhi and MLK came to mind, as did the Berrigan brothers and Dorothy Day,... but I was hoping to dig a little deeper than the obvious. I wondered which European colonists tried to speak for first nation peoples. They would be the first of America's peacemakers. However I found no easily sourced material, and I'm a pretty fair intertube crawler. Then it dawned on me (right Sherlock) that it would be the native Americans which wanted peace, not the Europeans settlers.
Powhatan's Speech to John Smith (1607)
Why should you take by force that from us which you can have by love? Why should you destroy us, who have provided you with food? What can you get by war? We can hide our provisions, and fly into the woods; and then you must consequently famish by wronging your friends. What is the cause of your jealousy? You see us unarmed, and willing to supply your wants, if you will come in a friendly manner, and not with swords and guns, as to invade an enemy. I am not so simple, as not to know it is better to eat good meat, lie well, and sleep quietly with my women and children; to laugh and be merry with the English; and, being their friend, to have copper, hatchets, and whatever else I want, than to fly from all, to lie cold in the woods, feed upon acorns, roots, and such trash, and to be so hunted, that I cannot rest, eat, or sleep. In such circumstances, my men must watch, and if a twig should but break, all would cry out, "Here comes Capt. Smith;" and so, in this miserable manner, to end my miserable life; and, Capt. Smith, this might be soon your fate too, through your rashness and unadvisedness. I, therefore, exhort you to peaceable councils; and, above all, I insist that the guns and swords, the cause of all our jealousy and uneasiness, be removed and sent away.
Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, Plea for Justice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEMdN_4GAs4 (4 min)
Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself— and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty. Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars. We shall all be alike— brothers of one father and one mother, with one sky above us and one country around us, and one government for all. Then the Great Spirit Chief who rules above will smile upon this land, and send rain to wash out the bloody spots made by brothers’ hands from the face of the earth. For this time the Indian race are waiting and praying. I hope that no more groans of wounded men and women will ever go to the ear of the Great Spirit Chief above, and that all people may be one people.
Not much has changed really. I remember Standing Rock's movement. (5 min)
I don't know about you, but I was struck by its power. Here were/are the first nations people trying to teach us...reach out and help us connect with our planet...fulfill the prophesy of the seventh generation. The water protectors came in peace to block the pipeline and its inevitable leaks, and were met with taxpayer funded mercenaries in full battle array spraying and arresting them. I grew up in Birmingham and this affected me the way the Children's March did 50 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCxE6i_SzoQ (10 min)
As we have often discussed, our nation was founded on two great sins, the genocide of first nations people and slavery. There is some overlap. Native Americans were often enslaved http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/01/nati...
Dr King spoke about the genocide of our native peoples.
http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/dr-king-spoke-out-against-the-genoci...
So when and how did a US peace movement emerge?
Wiki suggests it emerged out of a few churches...
Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating Christian pacifism or Biblical nonresistance. The term historic peace churches refers specifically only to three church groups among pacifist churches—Church of the Brethren; Religious Society of Friends (Quakers); and Mennonites, including the Amish, Old Order Mennonite, and Conservative Mennonites—and has been used since the first conference of the peace churches in Kansas in 1935
The first Peace movements were products of two strands of thought that coalesced at the end of the 18th century. One, rooted in the secular Enlightenment, promoted peace as the rational antidote to the world's ills, while the other was a part of the evangelical religious revival that had played an important part in the campaign for the abolition of slavery. Representatives of the former, included Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in Extrait du Projet de Paix Perpetuelle de Monsieur l'Abbe Saint-Pierre (1756), Immanuel Kant, in his Thoughts on Perpetual Peace. and Jeremy Bentham who proposed the formation of a peace association in 1789. Representative of the latter, was William Wilberforce who thought that strict limits should be imposed on British involvement in the French Revolutionary War based on Christian ideals of peace and brotherhood.
The first such movement in the US was the New York Peace Society, founded in 1815 by the theologian David Low Dodge, and the Massachusetts Peace Society. It became an active organization, holding regular weekly meetings, and producing literature which was spread as far as Gibraltar and Malta, describing the horrors of war and advocating pacificism on Christian grounds
Slavery and the (un)civil war are too much to tackle in this essay. So I'm going to jump to our imperialist phase...
http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/the-spanish-american-war-and-the-anti-i...
There was an Anti-Imperialist League that worked against the evolution of the American Empire https://mises.org/library/anti-imperialist-league-and-battle-against-empire
But really the anti-war movement strengthens with WWI...the war to end all wars...
Women played a big role -
https://wwionline.org/articles/women-peace-activists-during-world-war-i/
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/
Michael Kazin’s book War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 tells the story of these Americans, who tried to prevent the militarization of the United States.
It was a very diverse coalition: Democrats, Republicans, conservatives and radicals, different races. I focus on four figures who I think were important because each of them led a key faction in the coalition. One was Crystal Eastman, a fairly young woman who was a very active suffragist, a member of the Socialist Party for a time, and a leader of a strong feminist movement of that period. She was a key organizer of antiwar groups, the Women’s Peace Party of New York and the American Union Against Militarism, and later on she became the co-editor of the Liberator magazine. The other figure on the activist side was Morris Hillquit who was a liberal lawyer, an immigrant born in Latvia. He was the Socialist Party’s key emissary to Socialist parties in Europe, which were much larger and stronger than the American Socialist Party was.
There were also two figures in Congress. Robert La Follette, a senator from Wisconsin, who was very pro-labor and very involved in international peace movements; he was the leader of the progressive Republicans. The fourth figure was Claude Kitchin, a Democratic congressman from North Carolina and the Majority Leader of the House during the war. He was also a white supremacist and one of the people involved in basically disenfranchising African Americans in North Carolina. He was very much a populist with a small “p,” opposing the power of Wall Street munitions makers in the economy, which he thought would only grow if the US went to war.
It’s important to understand, these figures came from different places demographically and ideologically, but they all agreed that having a much larger military and then going to war would make America a very different place and they all opposed that.
https://newrepublic.com/article/141647/opposition-world-war-one-galvaniz...
The Peace Movement became international and grew as did the horrors of the Great War ...
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/pacifism
World War II also had it's peace activists...
In the USA, Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), War Resisters League (WRL), and the historic peace churches (Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren) as well as (after 1940) the Communist party, were all engaged in activity against the war. Multiple new groups were established, most of them remained relatively small. The Peace Association of Christian Scientists (PACS) and the Association of Catholic Conscientious Objectors are illustrative examples of the new flowering of peace initiatives. Most of them campaigned locally and the majority were faith-based. The main activity for most of the peace movements in the first years was to arrange public meetings, distribute material, collect signatures against the war, and publically demonstrating in other ways against the use of war to solve the conflict. The appalling loss of life during World War I was often used as an argument against engaging in a new war....
The other huge “domestic” issue in the USA during the war was the question of conscientious objectors. October 1940 was the first time the government introduced conscription in peacetime. The peace movement was not capable of stopping the bill, but some voices speaking out against the new law were very strong. Isolationist Senator Borah of Idaho denounced it as Hitler’s “first victory over American democracy”. The religious peace activist Franklin Zahn said it was “an attempt to fight slavery in Europe by adopting it here”. Most objectors accepted the conscription system, but refused to take part in the armed forces.
https://jjohansen.net/2013/12/30/world-war-ii-and-peace-movements-1939-1...
About this time I began to wonder does anti-war = peace? I found this idea somewhere..
"anti-war" movements often have short-term goals, while peace movements advocate an ongoing life-style and proactive government policy.
I found this on wiki-
Some people refer to the global loose affiliation of activists and political interests as having a shared purpose and this constituting a single movement, "the peace movement", an all encompassing "anti-war movement". Seen this way, the two are often indistinguishable and constitute a loose, responsive, event-driven collaboration between groups with motivations as diverse as humanism, environmentalism, veganism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, decentralization, hospitality, ideology, theology, and faith.
Seems like if you are for peace, then you must be against war. Maybe a rose is a rose...so to speak.
In my youth I attended anti-war rallies against the Vietnam War. I know many of you had similar experiences, and I would love to hear some of your stories in the comments below. Here's a couple of interesting viewpoints...
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/antiwar.html
Much of this video material is an hour or so long. I hope you all have a situation where you can use your digital "device" in a mobile way. I recently discovered one of many audio converters which allows you to transfer almost any audio content directly to your gizmo and not have to sit in front of a screen. Stay active and healthy, my friends.
There is much more to say about the US peace movement. https://www.antiwar.com/
Please share your views and stories below. I'm at the Florida Folk Festival this weekend won't be able to respond till next week. I'll leave the commentary in your capable hands...
Comments
Good Sunday morning, Lookout~~
I have a few minutes to comment as my guests are still in their slumber. A few minutes of peace before the action of the day kicks in.
There's a good Jimmy Dore video I watched on JPR where he dissects spy gate using Greenwald's Intercept piece. I emailed NPR this week and sent them a link to that Intercept piece because they were minimizing the spy's role in the affair and suggested they watch how they are spinning the story when many of us are onto the Deep State shenanigans. Of course I didn't hear back.
Have a beautiful day and, for those off tomorrow, a beautiful extended weekend!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
hope you had a good visit...
with your company. I had a great festival, and am back home brain dead and weary from sleep deprivation. The things we do for fun!
Have a good week!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Great info.
I've found that most "Veterans for War" never left the Green Zone. They had a few scares, usually from a mortar attack, and got their combat badge and an immortality syndrome.
"Veterans for peace" went outside the wire, and know war intimately.
Reason I have such a loathing for the American worship of Patton. I have often spoken of my distaste for the man, and the older I get the more I realize that he has been held up as an example, precisely because he embodies the exact opposite values of Butler. Patton is the prime example of the corporate state at war. Delusions of grandeur, hard talking, and brutal discipline, but nowhere to be found when the bullets start flying.
So, yeah, I absolutely fall into the "Hate War, but cannot be a total pacifist" mentality. I find that conflict is sadly inevitable. It's HOW we prepare for those conflicts that define us. A country that prepares weapons of mass destruction claiming that if they don't do it, their enemies will... well, they're frankly just sick.
War should never be seen as anything but an absolutely last resort. However, there does come a point when all resorts have been tried, and further attempts at peace will reach only the same end. One treaty isn't it... but a pattern of broken treaties, abuse of power, genocide, despotism, corruption and overall being a shithead counts, as far as I'm concerned.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaJAxdGeZ4E]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
We all must follow our nature...
even the Buddhists have a place for warriors. I've always avoided conflict...spent too much time surrounded by it as a child. We must come out of who and what we are...
PS on a personal note, I hope to get your package in the mail on Wednesday, so look for it next week? All the best!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thank you Lookout,
you are awesome. Blessed be the peacemakers. If only.
As always your Sunday compilation is rich.
Some blues:
Thank you for dropping by
I appreciate your regular Sunday howdy do!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Howard Zinn
I knew Professor Zinn when he was at B.U. during the Vietnam war protests. He was a very moral, caring person, and there was an air of authenticity about him. I liked him very much.
From Wiki:
He later went back to Royan and talked to the people and found what a incredible horror was visited on these people for the crime of having a few German soldiers hiding in the city of which they had no control. Much of the bombing and the end of WWII was gratuitous. It was officers making their mark while they could. Real war gave them the opportunity to use real lethal weapons because, well just because.
Our country has some serious self-reflection to do. War is a protection racket and the people believe that they are in danger and demand whatever protection they are told that the country needs. We have not been threatened on our soil since 1812. The founding fathers were anti-war and made it hard to actually declare war, on purpose. The President is C.I.C. but he cannot declare and fight a war on his own...in theory. They were against a standing army. Well we now have a $Trillion per year standing army, the largest the world has ever seen, and for a country with no viable threats against it. The first step is to see what a crime against humanity this is. Then understand that politicians are paid to promote war and benefit at election time with not only dollars but the campaign issue of "protecting America". Then we use our political, economic and military might to coerce other countries to join us in this insanity. No wonder the deep state hates Russia. There is no way that this will work on Russia. It's transparently obvious what a sham this is. Russia is in fact one of our best friends because they will tell us when we are wrong. Our "friends" are sycophants cowed by US economic and military strength. I have heard this directly from many people from countries around the world. The people know exactly what the US is about, but their government leaders would crap in their pants if they actually opposed the US.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
^^^^^^
The path you suggest is the only path that leads to a world where we can survive..
We must tell the truth about how we got here and write it down as a teachning for the future, if there is one. We must confess and correct the injustices committed by our kind. History should be taught around this core of truth. If we cannot do this, we be void of enlightenment and without defenses for what lies ahead.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
'war in reverse'
from kurt vonnegut's 'slaughterhouse five' (bily pilgrim and the fire bombing of dresden)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUhMzmeW3Qw]
when i used to note the event at my.firedoglake, you should have heard the yowls...
Hey!
As a science teacher, I spent much of my life trying to help people understand the nature of our planet and its systems. As a retired teacher I spend a fair amount of energy trying to help people understand the nature of our nation. I find Twain's quote true-
It is easier to fool people, than to convince them they've been fooled.
...the only problem is, it probably isn't a real quote from Twain...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-mark-twain-say-its-easier-to-fool-...
However the idea is accurate IMO.
Always glad for your insights PR!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Zinn
...was both a great educator and peacemaker. What a privilege to know him...no wonder you're the wizard!
I often ask young folks if they've read his People's History...the answer is usually , No.
Thanks for your insights!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for the post.
The weather is sunny and warm. Thanks for making time for us anyway.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Howdy
Glad you came by. The festival was wet and wild! Torrential rains Thursday night after arrival, and then mainly showers. We set up a couple of 12 x 24 foot tarps ... giving us a 24 x 24 ft dry area (except for spray). So we weathered the event and had lots of music and fun despite the rain.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I object to Einstein being included in that group
because, you know, the atom bomb.
He said some very nice things about peace and the evil of war. I understand that he was concerned about Germany. Still, Gandhi, MLK, John Lennon, Bob Marley never wrote letters to the President about how to use uranium to build a big bomb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93Szil%C3%A1rd_letter#/medi...
I agree for the most part...
I use clip art I find on the intertube...I am not a graphic artist. So it was the idea that being a peace activists is a higher calling that I was after.
Albert was busy riding waves of light particles in his mind. He escaped the Germans and feared them enough to promote the bomb as you describe. I think he later regretted that and did work for peace.
Scholarly studies have been conducted on the subject...
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009411413402?journalCode...
He did spend much of his life as a pacifist..
https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2015/ghodsee-einstein-pacifism
As I started the essay...perfection is not a human condition.
Good to "see" you.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
this was a great idea, lookout.
i know you'd mentioned the berrigans but i'd read last night, and dunno if you'd linked to 'Seven Plowshares Activists Arrested Protesting at U.S. Nuclear Sub Base, Apr 05, 2018, democracy now
i'd add the black alliance for peace, as well, ajamu barka national organizer. i had a third link and offering, lost them all. but good on ya, and thank you.
jeezum crow, i just recalled the third offering i'd forgotten.
'playing for change', world peace thru music.
one such offering of theirs:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJtq6OmD-_Y]
Love that idea!
World peace through music. I did mean to add the recent GA protests...thanks for adding it. And, thanks for introducing me to the black alliance for peace!
...i'm gonna keep on a walkin' keep on a talkin' walking on to freedom land.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPuBGcng6Tw]
(After the festival I feel like Billy Pilgrim...unstuck in time.)
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
may i add that this as the absolute best ant-war song i've ever
known? even going to get it will make me weep for the hundredth, two hundredth time. yeah, i'm that old... i grew up protesting viet nam.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozX0KazFoDk]
in peace, resolve, and solidarity,
wd
on edit: oh, bother, i'd failed to note your festival video and comment a la vonnegut's spiritual doppelaganger. fancy his being an underground prisoner of war during the fire-bombing of dresden? i really cant, to say the truth. but i love vonnegut witlessly. 'and so it goes...'
i'll watch a bit later; in need of some rest now, my brother....