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Peace

A Christmas Truce Of 2014

December 25, 2014 Mary Reynolds Powell, www.cleveland.com ,
Can we have a moment of humanity that changes everything? How many of us have stopped watching the news because we can't handle what we are seeing? In a season that is presumably devoted to peace, we have come to wonder if peace is possible in our country, with its culture of killing, bullying, sexual assault and torture. We know this is not who we are, but somehow it is us, and we don't know how to handle it, or get ourselves out of it. I've seen this before. Along with other members of Veterans for Peace who have served in war, I've seen what happens when fear takes over and we lose the better part of our humanity. We know what is possible when "the other" is cast as less than human. We know war, and it is here.

Peace Activists Sentenced On Human Rights Day

December 11, 2014 Buddy Bell, www.popularresistance.org , ,
On December 10, a federal magistrate found Georgia Walker, of Kansas City, MO and Chicagoan Kathy Kelly guilty of criminal trespass to a military installation as a result of their June 1 effort to deliver a loaf of bread and a citizens’ indictment of drone warfare to authorities at Whiteman AFB. Judge Matt Whitworth sentenced Kelly to three months in prison and Walker to one year of supervised probation. In testimony, Kelly, who recently returned from Afghanistan, recounted her conversation with an Afghan mother whose son, a recent police academy graduate, was killed by a drone as he sat with colleagues in a garden. “I’m educated and humbled by experiences talking with people who’ve been trapped and impoverished by U.S. warfare,” said Kelly. “The U.S. prison system also traps and impoverishes people. In coming months, I’ll surely learn more about who goes to prison and why.”

Germany Does Something The U.S. Hasn’t For Peace

December 10, 2014 World Beyond War, www.worldbeyondwar.org , ,
Imagine a letter co-signed by former presidents, former representatives from both sides of the aisle, House speakers, former governors, attorneys general, cabinet members, ambassadors, CEOs, movie stars and directors, writers, astronauts, religious leaders, mayors, academics, mainstream media correspondents, and more — all united in stating “Nobody wants war.” Imagine the New York Times publishing this letter. The equivalent happened in Germany just a few days ago. On December 5, the renowned weekly newspaper Die Zeit published the letter “Another War in Europe? Not in our name!” The more than 60 personalities from politics, business, culture and media certainly do not sound like the typical voices for peace, and indeed they are not.

As Ugly As War Is, Climate Change Will Bring Greatest Violence

December 4, 2014 Kathy Kelly, www.vcnv.org , , ,
Having lived through the 1991 Desert Storm bombing and the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing in Iraq, I tread carefully when speaking about any danger greater than war that children in our world might face. I won’t forget children in Baghdadi hospitals whose bodies I have seen, wounded and maimed, after bombing campaigns ordered by U.S. leaders. I think also of children in Lebanon and Gaza and Afghanistan, children I’ve sat with in cities under heavy bombardments while their frightened parents tried to distract and calm them. Even so, it seems the greatest danger – the greatest violence – that any of us face is contained in our attacks on our environment. Today’s children and generations to follow them face nightmares of scarcity, disease, mass displacement, social chaos, and war, due to our patterns of consumption and pollution. Ironically, one of the institutions in U.S. society which comprehends the disasters that loom is the U.S. military.

Vietnam Veteran Explains His Conversion To ‘Peacenik’ Protester

November 29, 2014 Beth Brogan, www.bangordailynews.com , ,
In 1998, Hendrick returned to Vietnam, joining a bike trip with about 100 U.S. military veterans and Viet Cong guerillas who had fought on opposing sides during the war. He pedaled from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — beside a blind veteran who rode on the back of a tandem bicycle, with paraplegic and quadriplegic veterans navigating hand bicycles, and many others equally scarred from their years in battle. Every night, they gathered to share their experiences. Most night the stories brought tears. “It was an incredibly emotional experience,” Hendrick said. “A real irrefutable introduction to the humanity of it all, to the brotherhood that we all shared. I saw the damage, first-person, that had been done to so many people — Americans and Vietnamese alike. I feel like I really did find my humanity during that experience.

Gandhi vs. The Mafia

November 22, 2014 Jesse Walker, www.reason.com , , ,
Not long ago, a prosecutor in Palermo heard something strange on a wiretap. A mobster was telling a henchman not to punish a store for failing to pay its pizzo, or protection money. Palermo, the largest city in Sicily, is at the heart of mafia country. In the past, trade association surveys have shown that about 80 percent of the town's shops were paying pizzo. But now more than 900 Sicilian firms, a majority of them in Palermo, are publicly refusing to give money to the mob, thanks to one of the most remarkable social movements to emerge in the last decade. Addiopizzo—Italian for "Goodbye, protection money"—is resisting the racketeers with tactics you're more likely to associate with Gandhi or the Arab Spring than a campaign against organized crime.

Christmas Truce: A Peace To End All War

November 19, 2014 Staff, www.veteransforpeace.org , ,
During World War I, on and around Christmas Day 1914, the sounds of rifles firing and shells exploding faded in a number of places along the Western Front in favor of holiday celebrations in the trenches and gestures of goodwill between enemies. On Christmas Eve, many German and British troops sang Christmas carols to each other across the lines, and at certain points the Allied soldiers even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing. At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man's-land, calling out "Merry Christmas" in their enemies' native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. There was even a documented case of soldiers from opposing sides playing a good-natured game of soccer.

Anti-US Base Candidate Wins Okinawa Governor Race

November 17, 2014 Matthew M. Burke, www.stripes.com , ,
Takeshi Onaga, who had vowed to block the shifting of U.S. flight operations from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Camp Schwab, defeated incumbent Hirokazu Nakaima handily Sunday in Okinawa's governor race. With 99.68 percent of the votes counted by press time, Onaga had garnered 360,536 votes to Nakaima’s 260,727. Former state minister Mikio Shimoji and musician-turned-representative Shokichi Kina received 69,212 and 7,795 respectively. All eyes had been on the race as it had widely been seen as a referendum on Tokyo’s policies regarding U.S. military posture in Japan, as well as a new U.S. military runway slated for the northern city of Nago. Onaga, who will take office Dec. 10, had vowed to block efforts to move flight operations from Futenma to Camp Schwab, if elected.

The Ordinary, Extraordinary Life Of David Hartsough

November 17, 2014 Ken Butigan, www.wagingnonviolence.org ,
David has been a friend for 30 years, and over that time I’ve rarely seen him pass up a chance to jump into the latest fray with both feet — something he’d been doing long before we met, as his book attests. For nearly six decades he’s been organizing for nonviolent change — with virtually every campaign, eventually getting tangled up with one risky nonviolent action after another. Therefore one might be tempted to surmise that David is yet another frantic activist on the perennial edge of burnout. Just reading his book, with its relentless kaleidoscope of civil resistance on many continents, can be dizzying — what must it have been like to live it? If anyone would qualify for not living the ordinary life, it would seem to be David Hartsough. As I finished his 250-page account, however, I drew a much different conclusion. I found myself thinking that maybe David has figured it out — maybe he’s been living the ordinary life all along.

Glorify Peace, Not War: Armistice Day vs. Veterans Day

November 11, 2014 Rory Fanning, www.theguardian.com ,
On 1 June 1954, less than a year after America exited the Korean War in defeat, the US congress got rid of Armistice Day, which was established in 1919, and started Veterans Day. In place of what had been a celebration of peace, Congress instituted an annual veneration of those who fought in war. America would ever after celebrate not the beauty of peace, but its purveyors of state violence in World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Grenada, Kosovo, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and more. Governments had meant to do the opposite in 1919: if you go back and read the newspapers of the time closely enough, you can almost hear the collective sigh of relief and jubilation on the first Armistice Day. Millions celebrated peace and renounced war. Kurt Vonnegut, a World War II veteran, wrote in 1973: Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. "Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not. So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things."

Who Owns Angola’s Land? A Problem That Needs Quick Resolution

November 8, 2014 Klas Lundström, www.theguardian.com , ,
What would the people of Angola be without land? Teresa Quivienguele thinks for a moment, then says: “We’re nothing without land. Land is our mother, a tool to survive and evolve as people.” At the Angolan NGO Action for Rural Development and Environment’s (Adra) headquarters in central Luanda, where Quivienguele has her office, a map of the country covers the wall. There are many things to do, she says, and being in charge of Adra’s social projects means doing a lot of work. “The land issue is Angola’s biggest challenge,” she says. Land became state-owned after independence in 1975. But since the end of the civil war in 2002 – and with land reform in 2004 – things have started to change. Foreign companies now invest in infrastructure, minerals, diamonds, oil and land.

Turn Armistice Day Into Day To End All Wars

November 5, 2014 Veterans For Peace, www.veteransforpeace.org , ,
Each year, Veterans for Peace chapters across the nation meet in major cities to celebrate and remember the original Armistice Day as was done at the end of World War I, when the world came together in realization that war is so horrible we must end it now. Fighting ceased in the "war to end all wars" on the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Congress responded to a universal hope among Americans for no more wars by passing a resolution calling for “exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding … inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.” Later, Congress added that November 11th was to be “a day dedicated to the cause of world peace.”

Israel Increases Pressure On Nonviolent Struggle’s Flagship Village

October 30, 2014 Roy Wagner, www.972mag.com , , ,
There’s nothing new under the sun in Bil’in. If you take a look at the Wikipedia page on Bil’in, you’ll see that the last updates about the village’s struggle against the separation wall refer to 2012. B’Tselem’s page on Bil’in was last updated almost two years ago. One could easily be led to believe that the struggle is over. But Bil’in continues to demonstrate. Perhaps updating Wikipedia and B’Tselem’s website isn’t necessary. The situation in Bil’in remains as it was. Veteran protesters even experience flashbacks to 2008, when the demonstrations took place near the old route of the wall.

12 Nobel Prize Winners Urge Obama To Release Torture Report

October 28, 2014 The Community, www.thecommunity.com , , ,
Dear Mr. President, The open admission by the President of the United States that the country engaged in torture is a first step in the US coming to terms with a grim chapter in its history. The subsequent release of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence summary report will be an opportunity for the country and the world to see, in at least some detail, the extent to which their government and its representatives authorized, ordered and inflicted torture on their fellow human beings. We are encouraged by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s recognition that “the creation of long-term, clandestine ‘black sites’ and the use of so-called ‘enhanced-interrogation techniques’ were terrible mistakes,” as well as the Senate Committee’s insistence that the report be truthful and not unnecessarily obscure the facts.

Cross-Canada Anti-War Demonstrations Against Third Iraq War

October 24, 2014 Global Research News, www.globalresearch.ca , , ,
We invite the people of Quebec and Canada to protest: Against a new illegal war that contributes to dismantling the existing world order and that threatens “world peace and security” while pretending to defend them; Against the security and humanitarian pretexts invoked by the new coalition: the protection of Iraq’s population has nothing to do with the real motives of this war, which will cause them more suffering and further deteriorate their living conditions; Against a Canadian foreign policy centered on intensifying conflicts and war; Against the hijacking of huge amounts of public resources to make war, promote the military industry, glorify the army and Canada’s military past, while for many years « austerity measures » have cut education, healthcare, public services, the promotion of women’s rights, the protection of the environment, international cooperation, etc.
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