Excerpt: “Schizophrenic behavior” is defined as behavior which is motivated by contradictory or conflicting principles, or which results from the co-existence of disparate or antagonistic activities. In other words, when your ideals frequently conflict with each other, and when your actions feel equally conflicted, it can drive you nuts. Fallible human attempts to live up to one’s ethics, values, standards and goals can make even the best soldiers feel schizophrenic. Excerpt: When soldiers from any nation come home from their wars, of course they have trouble rectifying all they've participated in, with their peacetime ethical, spiritual and religious beliefs about what it means to be humane, caring, good—all the many understandings parents and teachers carefully taught them about what makes relationships work, and what make life worth living. Many returning war veterans basically go insane for years. Others are unstable or crazy for the rest of their lives.   more »

This anonymous post about anti-China perceptions in the West is viral on the internet. I found it fascinating and thought-provoking. I think you will too.... What Do You Really Want From Us? When we were the sick man of Asia, We were called the yellow peril. When we are billed as the next superpower, we are called "the threat." When we closed our doors, you launched the Opium War to open our markets. When we embraced free trade, you blamed us for stealing your jobs. When we were falling apart, you marched in your troops and demanded your fair share. When we tried to put the broken pieces back together again, Free Tibet, you screamed. It was an invasion! When we tried communism, you hated us for being communist. When we embraced capitalism, you hated us for being capitalist. When we had a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet. When we tried limiting our numbers, you said we abused human rights. When we were poor, you thought we were dogs. When we lend you cash, you blame us for your national debts. When we build our industries, you call us polluters. When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming. When we buy oil, you call it exploitation and genocide. When you go to war for oil, you call it liberation. When we were lost in chaos, you demanded the rule of law. When we uphold law and order against violence, you call it a violation of human rights. When we were silent, you said you wanted us to have free speech. When we are silent no more, you say we are brainwashed xenophobes. Why do you hate us so much? we asked. No, you answered, we don't hate you. We don't hate you either, But do you understand us? Of course we do, you said, We have AFP, CNN and BBC.... What do you really want from us? Think hard first, then answer... Because you only get so many chances. Enough is enough, enough hypocrisy for this one world. We want one world, one dream, and peace on earth. This big blue earth is big enough for all of us.    more »

Excerpt: Will some brilliant programmer please step up and design a google-type software program that can linguistically analyze and determine a speaker/writer’s cooperative tone and intent? Your new program could identify and distinguish among those writers/speakers whose communications promote a sense of division, partisanship, negativity, polarization, blame, attack, incivility, rudeness, destructiveness, unfriendly competition, bickering and hate—and those promoting a sense of positivity, creativity, life-affirmation, support, harmony, acceptance, forgiveness, productivity, civility, courtesy, equality of opportunity, caring, cooperation and unity. Excerpt: Your software would have endless useful and profitable applications. For immediate profitability, please consider using your product for security purposes, to helpfully ward off unfriendly attacks and attackers (of whatever kind) upon individuals and enterprises (of whatever kind.) Excerpt: Your software will stimulate lively dialogue; increase the impact and number of creative, thought-provoking, and controversial-but-civil exchanges; reduce (by virtue of indifference and neglect) the quantity and influence of divisive communications arising anywhere in the world; universally improve facility in verbal and mental processing of complexities, innuendo and nuances; and inspire us all to pull together cooperatively to resolve our common personal, local and global problems.    more »

(Excerpt): I do hope the current media frenzy results in a national dialogue which teaches America how scary, emotional and risky it is to be a minority member in America, unpredictably facing powerful, fallible, human, and sometimes consciously or unconsciously prejudiced law enforcement individuals and organizations which always circle the wagons to protect themselves; and also, how scary, emotional and risky it is to be a conscientious police officer trying daily to do a thankless job, by selflessly and repeatedly putting him or herself into deadly, confusing, volatile—and often, degrading, no-win—situations. (Excerpt): Why don’t police officers all wear video recording devices at all times? This requirement would protect both the police and all citizens, by encouraging all participants to always be on their best behavior. Think how much money it would save in court costs and legal fees! (Excerpt): I recently humbly “donated” money to my community for having been caught red-handed by a camera showing me running a red light I would have sworn before a judge I never ran. That camera saved both me and the court system a lot of money. Memories are faulty, but cameras and recorders are less so…. (Except): Everybody plays the fool sometimes…. There’s no exceptions to the rule….   more »

Excerpts: Angry media xenophobes and demagogues try to scare us into believing that the world is divided into a tiny deserving few of “us” vs. a vast faceless, threatening, undeserving “them,” urging us to abandon the goal of peace and justice for all, and to put power and wealth in the hands of a few self-interested fear-mongers who guilefully “guarantee” safety through militarism. Offering the opposite message are the great leaders of our past and present, urging us to love and help one another, to give and forgive, to risk peace instead of war, and to work together for respectful, supportive conditions valuing the sanctity of human life everywhere. Truly, we cannot avoid all injustice, but we can avoid adding to its sum. Justice implies neutrality and fairness, but no judges are completely unbiased. We all see the world uniquely, based on our different backgrounds. In the face of the same legal arguments, natural, unavoidable bias is evident in the many disagreements among even our rigorously-selected highest justices. Our current justices’ life experiences are for the most part grounded in privilege and wealth. A more balanced Supreme Court would include justices whose lives reflect struggles against prejudice, poverty or disadvantage, since, in common law legal systems like our own, justices at times “make the law” by overturning precedents, regulations and legislation, with immense implications for future generations.   more »

(Excerpt): For instance, thanks to our current civic dialogue on torture, we now realize that the decision to torture, like the decision to go to war, only seems “simple” when we see “others” as “not-us,” “different,” and in terms of “us/them;” the decision to torture is infinitely more complicated when we view all people as valuable, “us,” “ours,” one community. We’ve also learned that torture undermines founding American principles of respect and support for human life, is often counterproductive, ineffective, unreliable, and misleading, endangers our own imprisoned soldiers, weakens our alliances, and creates endless new enemies.   more »

Regarding the op-ed Obama’s China Card of 4/8/09: John Wohlstetter’s sinful offer to China of a poisoned diplomatic apple would serve only to heighten geostrategic tensions. Why aggravate our banker China, our most influential ally in negotiating with North Korea, when China could well be the very country most-motivated to partner with Obama’s smart-power, win-win efforts to find peaceful and mutually-advantageous solutions to the global problems shared-in-common by China and her trading partners, neighbors and debtors? Immense U.S. profits already accrued from China’s WTO membership will only grow during China’s historic rise—if unresolved energy shortages, climate change, nuclear proliferation, war, terrorism, trade wars, worldwide crime and disease and other such global conundrums don’t make future international trade moot. Increased enmity with China could even lead to war, which never prevents catastrophe, being itself a catastrophe. Our closest allies have with impunity violated far more UN Security Council resolutions than has North Korea. Let’s retire our lingering sentimental attachments to obsolescent strategies like sword-rattling and stick-shaking, along with defunct foreign policies that bully, threaten, and subsidize massive war-profiteering, approaches which have only moved our tiny blue planet steadily closer to nuclear nightmare.   more »

I originally titled this piece, "Rush Limbaugh is a Dangerous Destructive Simplistic Fear-Based Hateful Ignorant Terrifying Lying Demagogic Blowhard." But I like Rush Limbaugh, if not what he says, so I changed the title. Some of the things I like best about Rush Limbaugh are: his work ethic, his perseverence, his vulnerability, his gentleness, his good mind and his facility with words and ideas, his patriotism, and his loving spirit. Despite overwhelming evidence that his narrow worldview is way too confining for his large heart and fine intelligence, he seems fiercely determined so far to force unruly facts into his too-small mental paradigms, in order that he may continue to be safely "right" about whatever he's said up until now. Rush Limbaugh is afraid (as are we all) of being "wrong," and also of not-knowing, when the truth is, the more one knows, the more one knows one doesn't know. What I do know about Rush is that he means well, and that he wants very much to believe that what he's doing will work for him and for America and Americans. Certainly his past approaches have made him rich. They've also left him feeling very much alone in an angry, frightened, adoring, clueless crowd.   more »

From the looks of the many recent letters to newspapers, U.S. right-wing extremists plan to win back the presidency in 2012 by politiely offering voters a false dichotomy: we citizens will "be forced" to choose between safety and good government—i.e., “Since Bush protected us from terrorist attacks, if there is an attack on Obama’s watch, it will be Obama’s fault, so we'll have to fire him—regardless of his achievements for the people.” The truth is, terrorist attacks are quite likely nowadays, being relatively cheap, easy to carry out, and hard to prevent; examples of such atrocities are 9/11 (which occurred on Bush’s watch), the London train bombings, and the Mumbai attacks. Obama will defend our borders, go after terrorists, and work with all nations to confront and ameliorate the conditions which produce terrorism—lawlessness, violent cultures, lack of opportunity, political oppression and repression, poverty, inequality, easily-available weapons, and ongoing conflicts. But Obama’s job has not been made easier by Bush's disastrous economic legacy, nor by his ill-advised Iraq war, Guantanamo, and his record of torture, all of which have left Obama with an Al Qaeda far bigger, stronger, richer, and more dedicated than Bush ever inherited from Clinton. None of these facts matter, however, to faithless demagogues like Rush Limbaugh, who trust in lies, fear—and a timely terrorist attack—to rescue themselves and their ilk from present ignominy. I welcome your comments! Please send them to njcpace@gmail.com . Thank you! Nancy Pace :) Ps. I am working on a memoir of my years as the military brat daughter of a highly-decorated war hero (and career officer)--about the implications of those experiences for me, my family, other military families, my country and the world in general, and about my difficult transition to peace activism. I will return to full-time blogging as soon as ever I can, and until then, I know I will keep blogging sporadically because sometimes I simply cannot not write about reactions I have to things I read in the newspaper, like the above commentary.... I love blogging, and will post again soon.... Thank you for your patience to all my readers! :)   more »

(Excerpt): During those pre-Civil War days, politicians gained national political stature through public speaking—that is: by composing speeches and then publishing them in the nation’s newspapers. These thoughtfully-wrought, persuasive intellectual arguments concerning the issues of the day included valuable original personal perspectives and prescriptions for appropriate responses to breaking conflicts and topics. Barack Obama himself has certainly fulfilled all such requirement for visionary intellectual leadership, having personally written two best-selling books during his relative youth, and having personally planned and executed an unparalleled national campaign that bent and shaped the ideas of the world through the sheer force of his intellect. (Excerpt): But Secretary of State? We definitely do not need a parochial street fighter in that role. What we need is a global visionary who will approach the world non-adversarially—not as a defensive women up against a world of men, not as an advocate of the interests of the United States against the interests of “the rest,” but as one with all others. (Excerpt): Actually, I had Al Gore in mind for Obama's Secretary of State, because of his green, global, cooperative vision and personality, and his demonstrated intellectual leadership through speaking, writing, and other political venues. But if Obama does offer State to Clinton, then I hope she will consider his offer with a real humility about her motives and abilities gained from her recent hubris. And if she accepts, I hope she now comes from that intellectual bandwidth which alone will determine whether both their decisions will look good to posterity. Unfortunately, Clinton’s previous particular strengths have not been in this department—with the exception of her global work for women and children.   more »

(Excerpt): Barack’s victory was a victory of hope, love, and faith over cynicism, despair, and vengeance. Journalists telling his election story just exactly as it unfolded were right to tell the truth that for a brief shining moment, America once again welcomed the possibility of a promising new king ready and eager to reign wisely and well from a diverse, compassionate and representative roundtable.   more »

(Excerpt): It’s too late to stabilize markets using taxpayer money. The world has legitimately rejected as unreliable our current corrupt economic system and currency (read Paul Craig Roberts, among others.) No amount of taxpayer money spent by crooked politicians picking ultimate winners and losers in this crash can restore international confidence. (Excerpt): Prices won’t fall indefinitely; in today’s small world, international buyers quickly snap up values. Self-serving government bailouts complicate and postpone the day markets correct and we begin our arduous climb back to national recovery. (Excerpt): We’ll need all the FDIC and charitable money government must print to pay its bills, insure citizen trust in local banks, and prevent daily suffering—unemployment, starvation, freezing, homelessness—when the inevitably ensuing inflation has shrunk to pennies the hard-won dollars of middle and lower-class wage-earners and savers. (Excerpt): When this crash finally hits its natural bottom, we will begin again, sadder and wiser, to build a better, more stable, caring market system. Hopefully, Barack Obama, with his characteristic thoughtfulness, pragmatism and vision, will lead us capably through this terrible time, and back to greatness.   more »

(excerpt): After all, I wasn't getting as much done these days as at some other times in my life, probably because I’m currently feeling bogged down and overwhelmed and uninspired and unsure how to juggle my already-competing priorities. Probably an exciting new involvement, by its nature, will synergistically fill in important blanks, open new mental doors, create missing links, help me integrate, energize and prioritize all my beloved activities--inform all of them, support all of them. Because, just as army brats must (eventually...somehow...) learn excellence, loyalty, perseverence, and FINISHING STUFF, we musn't forget meanwhile that we also simply thrive on jumping into new opportunities, taking risks, enjoying novelty, adventure, new learning, new friends, excitement, expanding our spidery souls by ceaselessly venturing, seeking connection, tirelessly unreeling our threads out of ourselves, casting filament after filament out into the universe, 'til they catch somewhere, O my soul*....   more »

(Excerpt): We are all conditioned to believe that being “right” about ourselves, our politics, traditions and religions, is more important than living and letting others live in peace. We have to be “right” about so many things—about who the bad guys are, who started it, who was at fault, what happened, who meant well and who didn’t, who did what to whom, whose ideology or form of government or religion is superior…. (Excerpt): The truth is, in this confusing world, it’s difficult to find agreement even amongst our best friends and those most “like” us, about what life is all about—what we’re doing here, and how best to look upon the world, ourselves, and one another. Even the greatest scholars realize that the more they know, the more they know they don’t know. This is why, in every conflict, humility, acceptance, mutual respect, support, and yes, forgiveness, are the wisest guides to being “right.” (Excerpt): Wars cannot prevent catastrophes; war itself is a catastrophe, as attested by all those whose lives are touched by war. Soldiers and soldiers’ families are always catastrophically exploited by war. Ninety percent of the victims of war are civilians. We who so proudly march into war have no idea what future injustices those wars will inevitably loose upon innocents on all sides.   more »

(Excerpt): John McCain’s idea of leadership is to cheer us on comfortably from the sidelines, while using his most familiar tool, the military, to force the outcomes he desires. Barack Obama will organize and galvanize us to take the necessary effective national actions on our problems. He will spend our tax money wisely, keep us out of costly wars, get us working to solve our problems, and get us where we need to go, together.   more »

Barack is our most electable candidate in November. Here's why....   more »

(Excerpt): I must once again protest The Washington Post’s relentless editorial bias against China and China's favorite current project, the upcoming Beijing Olympics (see "Saved by China," May 14.) For several years, whenever China has made the news, The Washington Post has jumped on all such occasions to write strongly negative editorials portraying China in the most unfriendly, unfavorable light. This negative bias is not apparent in your great newspaper toward any other nation or ethnicity. My letters-to-the-editor and my calls to you questioning this pointed hostility have been ignored. I hope that no single individual in your organization is so powerful as to feel free to disseminate his or her personal racist, belligerent perspectives toward this powerful, influential and important nation, because such attacks are unworthy and unrepresentative of your otherwise admirably balanced, objective news organization......................... Also, a letter I wrote in Oct 07: Who gains from your relentlessly adversarial, competitive slant toward China, except a few fear-mongering demagogues and their greedy, war-profiteering kin (see your mean-spirited editorial about the problems of the Three Gorges Dam, Oct. 15th.) Please consider adopting a friendlier, more open-minded editorial tone which treats all others everywhere the way we in the U.S. would like to be treated by foreign journalists. Salute and learn from others’ achievements, empathize with their failures, celebrate commonalities, accept differences, bear with weaknesses, enlighten and support one another.   more »

I’m enjoying watching the Obama veepstakes unfold…. If Hillary doesn't want the job, which she isn't right for (although I love her) maybe Barack will pick either Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey or Jim Webb.    more »

(Excerpt): Hillary has stated clearly that she will not end her campaign until the Dems choose a nominee. How much more clearly can she ask the Superdelegates to please get this over with and decide in favor of Barack Obama? Hillary does not want to be seen as a quitter; does not want to let her supporters down; does not want to go into any more debt; does not want to continue the grueling campaign if she can't win; and does not want to be the one to end her campaign, as she may want to run again in 2012. Hillary may also want very much to help Barack win in the general election--I sure hope so. Barack is certainly Hillary's kind of candidate, this last year's competition notwithstanding. Hillary could definitely use some help in fashioning her endorsement statement to her supporters, and help in planning her future role in the rest of Obama's campaign. What she says about Barack then, and how she says it, will make a huge difference in promoting the healing of divisions. It's so important that all this be properly and creatively framed, orchestrated (and spelled)--she knows it, Barack knows it, everyone knows it. Isn't it time to get together and begin working together for change, for the good of the party and the country?   more »

(Excerpt): I loved the characters, humor, romance and politics in Ironman, and my husband especially enjoyed the heroism, computers, robotics, stunts, jets and action. The whole theatre, filled with middle/high-schoolers and adults, cheered and clapped when the movie ended. Amazingly enough, we hadn’t even been exploited or insulted by stupid politics, graphic sex, or gratuitous violence masquerading as entertainment.... (Excerpt): You can tell that the whole world is changing when a big-box-office action movie has as its major theme the evils of war profiteering and global weapons proliferation. Ironman simultaneously entertained and enlightened the whole crowd. Multi-faceted Robert Downey Jr. and classy Gwyneth Paltrow were at their most charming. (Excerpt): Ironman is a sweet, funny, exciting, well-made, fast-paced action movie I recommend to all who enjoy high-quality movie-making in this genre….   more »

(Excerpt): Although I support Obama’s candidacy wholeheartedly, I disagree with him here, preferring Reverend Wright’s logic. With Wright, I see no moral difference between a weak, fallible organization (or individual) setting off a suicide bomb in a marketplace, and a big, powerful, fallible nation dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population—except, of course, that powerful nations have more options. (Excerpt): War doesn’t prevent injustices. War itself is always a grievous injustice to all involved in it. Most soldiers and their families are catastrophically exploited by war. 90% of the victims of war are civilians. Unfortunately, when citizens manipulated into vindictive indignation over present and past injustices march into wars, they rarely consider all the many future injustices which that war will inevitably inflict on both sides. Whether or not we act violently, injustices occur. Whether we fight wars or rise up together in peaceful protest, some people will suffer unjustly, some will die. The Jews died in the Holocaust despite the war effort and perhaps also because of it. Europe is now united; tyrants come and go. No matter whether we choose peace, terrorism, or war, we cannot prevent all injustices. But we can avoid adding to their sum by accepting compromises, listening to all sides, and steadfastly rejecting the gravest injustice of all—war itself. (Excerpt): Too often, we prefer being “right” to living and letting others live in peace. We think we have to be right about so many things—about who’s the bad guy, who started it, who’s at fault, what happened, who meant well and who didn’t, who did what to whom, whose ideology or form of government is superior, whose religion is true, who is weird and strange and cultish and backward and disgusting, who gets to be in control, who gets to be the one with the gold who makes all the rules…. (Excerpt): When we insist on being ‘right’ rather than making the compromises necessary to live together in peace, we are making the choice of terrorism/war over freedom. What is freedom, if not the freedom to live one’s life and pursue one’s dreams in peace?   more »

(Excerpt): I was raised to think that fidgeting, shouting and mopping one’s brow when speaking in public was unrefined. My mom only meant to teach me how to act, but her instructions left me judgmental of other cultures and styles. I squirmed with her when Elvis Presley gyrated and grunted and sweated. Together we hated Hitler’s rants, and shrank in dismay from Khrushchev’s noisy shoe. Loud, angry, confrontive voices still do nothing for me. They feel rude and threatening. And I’m not alone in this. Maybe it’s my Calvinist streak, but I like my leaders calm, cool, and collected, like my man Barack Obama....    more »

I love Marianne Williamson (www.marianne.com). Like me, she believes in Barack Obama. We are both feminists. For me, feminism means being able to live your life in integrity with your own values and preferences and perspectives, not according to someone else's belief system about what is feminine or gender-appropriate. For more insight on Marianne's wonderful take on feminism, read her great book A Woman's Worth. But for now--here's Marianne's endorsement of Barack Obama, a true friend of women and men alike: "As a feminist, I believe nurturing and nourishing a world trying to be born is the most efficient way to counter the malevolent effects of a world that needs to pass away. That is why I support Obama. As a feminist, I believe inclusion is more powerful and life producing than is exclusion. That is why I support Obama. As a feminist, I believe tending and mending is a more effective way to deal with the world's stress points than is fighting or fleeing. That is why I support Obama. As a feminist, I believe having a vision for what I want the world to become is as important as solving problems that have arisen in the world that is. That is why I support Obama. As a feminist, I'm more concerned with creating a world my great-great-grandchildren can live in than in trying to make things better for me right now. That is why I support Obama. As a feminist, I am convinced that building authentic relationships is a more lasting, creative way to build peace than just strategizing to destroy enemies and manipulate alliances. That is why I support Obama...." - by Marianne Williamson (www.marianne.com )   more »

The long cruel media-bashing of Bill Richardson by Hillary Clinton’s attack-dogs, led by James Carville at his most offensive (which is saying a lot), was impeccably timed to stop cold the imminent bleeding of super delegates and other influential public figures to the Obama camp. Making an unfairly public example of Richardson, vengefully humiliating and marginalizing him, worked like a charm, though, and it’s still working. Leaders everywhere, the small and the mighty alike, are terrified now to defect to Obama, no matter how much they might want to. They’ve heard loud-and-clear the ringing message: “This is what will happen to you if you desert the Clintons!”******************** Bill Richardson has shown amazing integrity, grace and courage in standing up for what he believes to be best for all concerned. The Clintons deserve only condemnation for pigheadedly insisting on loyalty to persons over loyalty to country.**************** Like many others, I have admired the Clintons greatly, chalking up their political relentlessness mostly to their Christian compassion and desire to serve others. They’ve changed. They’re in it now more for the power than for the opportunity for service, and will apparently do whatever it takes to get back in the limelight. Power corrupts....**************** Regrettably, had the Clintons not fallen in love with themselves in power for eight more years, they would have been the first to jump at the chance to become Barack Obama’s most famous and influential supporters, because he’s exactly their kind of candidate. That opportunity for selflessness still lies ahead of them--an opportunity to reclaim the idealism which once so drew me and others to them when they truly were, as Obama is now, the future of the Democratic Party. ************* They'd better make up their minds soon, though, or instead of making twenty-first century history, the Clintons will be relegated to its periphery, becoming living anachronisms who leave only dinosaur footprints.*********** Please send your comments to njcpace@gmail.com , and I'll post them below this article. Thanks, Nancy :)   more »

I wonder if Barack Obama ever read Rudyard Kipling’s novel, Kim, about a half-British, half-Indian child growing up happily, as Barack did, in an amazingly diverse culture; Kim’s world was India, Barack’s Hawaii and Indonesia. Kim’s nickname was “little friend of all the world,” and he, like Barack, drew on his hard-won expertise in navigating a mysteriously multi-faceted childhood world to later become successful in “the great game” of politics. ********** Certainly, Kipling’s own memories of growing up in British Raj India influenced his own many adult contributions as a great communicator and cultural ambassador.************** I thought about these many fascinating commonalities while reading Amanda Ripley’s story in today’s Time Magazine about Barack’s anthropologist mother. What adventures she and Barack shared living in the fascinating mélange that is Indonesia—17,500 islands, 230 million people, 300 languages, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Dutch/Christian traditions--and later in multicultural Hawaii, where Barack attended, on scholarship, a prestigious private high school. ******************* Among Barack’s many strengths as a Presidential candidate are his openness to different cultural and political perspectives, and his non-polarizing, accepting attitude toward people from all walks of life. No one is ever a stranger to this non-ideological, caring, international rock star. ********************** What a fascinating youth compelled Barack Obama, our own young “friend of all the world,” to overcome petty divisions and partisan distractions, offer leadership and service to his own nation, and bring the world together to resolve our most pressing common global problems—the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and violence itself.   more »

(excerpt): I only know what I read in the papers, and I’m nervous about speaking up for someone who is, for the moment at least, being demonized by the Bush administration, especially someone who is currently shooting back at American forces, albeit in self-defense. But I must raise the question of whether Moqtada al-Sadr might not be one of the "good guys," a strong, spiritual leader whom world opinion should now be ecumenically supporting. (Excerpt): Al-Sadr is apparently a wildly popular leader of the Shiite poor, who, time and again, has demonstrated his commitment to peacefully resisting the overwhelmingly-superior military forces bent upon murdering him. Aside from his courageous refusal to relinquish the ancient homelands of his followers to invaders who would steal and exploit them, and his stubborn unwillingness to be assassinated, what has he done to deserve universal media condemnation and abandonment in the west? (Excerpt): Isn’t it time we reconsidered the unquestioned place we have given al-Sadr in our western pantheon of demonized enemies? He is a leader to whom the majority of Shiites in Iraq currently pledge their allegiance, one who has often turned the other cheek even while his beloved followers were being killed. Despite being repeatedly stalked, discredited, attacked, betrayed, and occasionally befriended by President Bush, his millions of followers trust him unreservedly to make their decisions for them. Shouldn’t journalists be speaking out loudly and clearly against the attacks upon him? Who are the bad guys here, and who are the good guys? (Excerpt): Currently, American forces are attacking al-Sadr’s Mahdi army in oil-rich Basra, which is right across the border from Iran. Perhaps Mr. Cheney hopes to provoke just enough Iranian retaliation for this particular aggression to finally justify his own longed-for invasion of Iran’s oil fields? Patriots in Basra and Iran share far more in common with one another than with their American attackers; surely the Iranian government cannot be expected to indefinitely contain the passions of their red-blooded youth, currently standing passively by watching while their brother-Shiites in Basra are being slaughtered.....   more »

American conservatives have always known that cooperative, caring, and harmonious relationships among Americans and nations are a very practical goal, critical to our national security. Certainly, we can sustain neither a desirable standard of living nor our well-loved freedoms at current levels of war spending, yet the problems we face in a violent, unstable world relentlessly compound. The American dream of “peace in our time” is the essential and constitutional business of a government charged with insuring domestic tranquility, a more perfect union, justice, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty. Peace has always been a conservative idea. Peace conserves lives, resources, good will, money, health, principles and values, our American ideals and traditional way of life, our environment and talents, our time, energy, and property. Barack Obama, like other true American conservatives, is deeply committed to conserving and preserving our American values, ideals, and way of life. The only thing “liberal” about Barack is his openness to fresh solutions to America’s many contemporary challenges.   more »

Michael Gerson says, "Barack Obama is not a man who hates -- but he chose to walk with a man who does." (Not that Obama is Jesus) but Jesus also walked with sinners. So do we all. So are we all, sinners, each in our own ways…. Let him among us who is without sin cast the first stone. Obama is guilty merely of seeking out and finding the most compassionate, passionate, intellectual, committed, loving, and yes, angry, leader of the Black church community in his Chicago neighborhood, and not only learning from him, but contributing greatly to his mission to fight injustice, poverty, and the ravages of AIDs in Chicago. Obama has clearly stated their areas of disagreement. He has rejected Wright's words of fear, divisiveness, and weakness. Obama has greater faith that America has come a long way, and wants to go further, wants to live up to our ideals. Obama, like Wright, like all candidates, like all leaders, is not a perfect vessel, as he has said many times. However, he is a uniquely able and good human being, willing to learn and serve. If we once again let ourselves be distracted or frightened by opportunistic campaigning that stirs up old fears, divisions, and hatreds, causing us to unwisely vote once more, out of panic, against our own best interests and those of our country, we will never solve our problems, which will require the whole country coming together to make that happen. What is in our best interest is: working in unity to resolve the common problems which all Americans, white and black, must resolve—our huge challenges in education, poverty, jobs, fair wages, health care, unwise wars, debt….. Barack Obama has the potential to be the truly great, unifying, inspiring leadership our country desperately needs. We can get back on track. Barack promises to help us get the job done. Let’s take him up on his offer.   more »

Both Barack and Hillary say they can lead America through sweeping legislative changes, yet only Barack has a convincing plan for getting it done.///// Hillary's plan is to do what she always has, that is, to work as hard as she can, and care a lot—a strategy which has resulted in creditable incremental changes, but which promises only more-of-the-same.///// Barack’s plan for getting it done is daring, plausible, and perfectly aligned with his uniquely charismatic and inclusive leadership style.///// He will begin by bringing in so many enthusiastic new voters during the general election that he will sweep a solid majority of Democrats, like-minded Independents, and Republicans amenable to his agenda into office along with him.///// After he’s elected President, he’ll use his remarkable consensus-building abilities to transparently bridge divisions and identify workable solutions to pressing common problems. ///// Then he’ll eloquently sell his legislative package to a devoted American public, who by that time will know and trust him far more than they’ll trust opposing politicians or special interest lobbies, no matter how much money is spent on media campaigns to the contrary.///// Finally, Barack will ask his devoted followers to hound their Members of Congress, and if necessary, turn out in the streets to protest, to get his legislation passed. And they will. And he will. ///// Hillary is wonderful, but her leadership style just doesn't get it done. During fifteen years of unlimited opportunities, connections, and insider information at the center of power—eight years as First Lady and seven years as a U.S. Senator—Hillary diligently chipped away at the edges of big problems, making praiseworthy differences in many lives, all good stuff, but hardly the leadership America needs now. ///// We need a widely popular President who can articulate, orchestrate, and legislate the urgent changes mandated by a solid majority of newly-mobilized followers—a President who gets it done. ///// Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a similarly-populist President who led the country through sweeping legislative changes cherished by the American working class, told the activists who sought his support, "You've convinced me. Now go out and make me do it." They turned out to protest, and his legislation passed. ///// All through FDR’s Presidential campaign, detractors had complained loudly that he would prove a flash in the pan, "only" a great communicator, a man of “mere” words. All such complaints ended abruptly, however, on Day One, a day which, after all, turned out to be far less significant than the many other truly transformative days that followed.    more »

(excerpt): Many of my women friends want to see Hillary Clinton elected President so much that they refuse to seriously consider Barack Obama at all. They’re curious about him, to be sure--no one could overlook all the campaign excitement or miss seeing at least a few of his ads. But they would never be so disloyal as to actually listen to one of his speeches or read his campaign literature for more details. They tell me quite frankly, they’ve already got a nominee who looks a lot like them, so would I please just leave it at that? I've always admired Hillary’s dignity and her many achievements. She's a survivor in what many women have experienced as a rough-and-tumble man’s world. We identify with her tragic husband-troubles, and respect her commitment to her marriage. We celebrate her moxie when men have dismissed her contributions and disrespected her ambitions. We’ve waited breathlessly our whole lives for this chance to elect a smart, capable woman President of the United States, and we know what a strong woman-Presidency could mean to our daughters and granddaughters. As years have passed, we’ve smiled with Hillary because we know what she knows, that doing well is the best revenge. What we are not all doing, however, is asking the question that we as patriots, citizens, and voters should ask, are duty-bound to ask: Which candidate would make the best President? ***** (Excerpt): Hillary is burdened with our nation's collective memory of past nasty campaigns and embarrassing setbacks. Unfortunately, she is a somewhat polarizing figure, distrusted and disliked still by too many voters. Barack, too, has fought difficult campaigns—beginning in Illinois, a state famous for its tough political climate—and has emerged squeaky-clean, greatly loved, and consistently elected in landslides by a constituency mirroring the wide range of backgrounds, interests, ages, genders and ethnicities found across America.****** (Excerpt): Ever since a skinny guy with a funny name no one could remember took on the formidably-organized and well-heeled campaign of internationally-recognized Hillary, Americans who have read his books and listened to him speak about his plans for America have begun to write their own hopes and dreams upon the fresh new slate which is Barack Obama. ****** (Excerpt): If nothing else, we’ve learned from our beloved civil rights and feminist leaders of the past that we cannot make good decisions about the best person for any job by considering the color of their skin, their race, or their gender. We must instead carefully weigh the content of their character, and thoughtfully consider their suitability for the job at hand. I think Hillary well-suited to be a Secretary of Health and Human Services, and her husband potentially an outstanding Supreme Court Justice. Consider, ladies, that a unifying Obama Presidency may be just what we need to help us find our way through today's troubles, toward a future we’ll be proud to leave our grandchildren.   more »

Hillary can’t wait to put the finishing touches on her wonderfully aggressive 60’s agenda, while Barack is at home in a tomorrow Hillary can’t visit even in her dreams.**********Hillary is thrilled with the chance to add more contributions to her amazing lifetime list, while Barack is thrilled with America’s chances for real change when he is President.**********Hillary is amazed at where she’s been and what she’s been able to accomplish, looking forward to recognition and vindication for her life’s work, while Barack envisions efficiently accomplishing today’s most pressing American policy goals and then moving forward to heal the world’s common global challenges.**********Hillary loves herself-in-power ruling over her former enemies, while Barack loves the-power-in-himself leading a unified America and world into a hopeful 21st century.**********Shall generations await coronation of Jeb Bush into an inevitable succession of Clinton and Bush kings (and queen) reigning in hubris over a 20th century past? Or will we charge our servant Barack Obama to lead us into an American future of unimaginable possibilities?   more »

Hillary and Barack both have wonderful abilities and qualities. However, pick only the one candidate whom you feel is the BEST qualified: (Click on MORE to take the quiz....)   more »

(excerpt): If Obama were killed today, he would be mourned as one of our greatest and most beloved American heroes for the priceless vision he came so close to successfully pulling off—the transformation of American politics. (Excerpt): Barack Obama, like Dr. King, is at great risk for assassination, because an Obama Presidency would completely upset the applecart for all the moneyed insider special interests in America on both sides of the political aisle. And there are some scary white supremacists out there who would kill him just for being presumptuous. (Excerpt): Obama is not only popular, well-organized, politically astute, and brilliant, he is a very viable political candidate, which makes him a huge target for assassination. Historically, America kills her charismatic popular leaders, those few and rare individuals who are brave, talented, and daring enough to actually stick their necks out to serve the people instead of established interests. Obama and his family are incredibly courageous, as courageous as Dr. King and his family were. (Excerpt): What are Obama’s odds of just surviving this campaign? Of living through a two-term Presidency? Of just plain living long, and prospering? I, for one, don’t intend to wait around to support him until after he’s dead. I only hope many more Americans will soon recognize what an unusual and precious political commodity Obama is, and what a rare opportunity we have for real change, if we will come together right now under his capable leadership. (Excerpt): How many Americans once misunderstood or opposed Dr. King, who now wish that they had dropped what they were doing to walk beside him? Well, we’ve got our chance again. (Excerpt): “Barack Obama Heals Nation and World.” Yes, I can see it. And I will hope and work to see it happen.   more »

Dr. King's life and stirring words have touched, in our own generation, another great and inspiring leader, Barack Obama, who just as courageously as Dr. King, leads us today, encouraging us to work with him in unity for change. In 1967, at a time when nationalistic fervor made opposition to the Vietnam war an agonizing choice, Dr. King spoke out boldly: “America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way (in a) 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. These are the times for real choices and not false ones.” Dr. King’s words could not be more relevant today. Barack Obama has been equally bold in his own steadfast opposition to the Iraq war since before its inception, when nearly everyone else was calling for the much more popular idea of vengeance and retaliation after the 9/11 tragedy.    more »

Only a United States of America and an Obama presidency will change a bleak American future into one that is genuinely hopeful and positive. Barack Obama’s unique combination of strengths and abilities make him the only candidate: 1. Who convincingly articulates an ambitious plan for addressing the most pressing common problems facing most Americans; 2. Who has the leadership, character, and political skills to take the Democratic nomination from insider/“incumbent” Hillary Clinton; 3. Who will win the general election with the backing of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike; 4. Whose popular "coat tails" will pack Congress with legislators from all parties supportive of his agenda in ’08 and in following elections; 5. Who will inspire national leaders having competing interests, ideologies, and agendas to find workable legislative solutions; 6. Who will inspire a grassroots citizen movement to get behind and pass such legislation; and 7. Who has the honesty, integrity, courage, intellectual bandwidth, global perspective, vision, character, judgment, and Presidential leadership skills necessary to simultaneously and successfully handle breaking crises as they arise, while healing and transforming national and international relations, and shepherding huge domestic policy changes through Congress. If we want to elect the smartest and best person in America willing to take the job, we should be working to elect Barack Obama President of the United States of America.    more »

(excerpt): Obama did have a chance to speak briefly and eloquently on the subject of the relative importance of charisma and leadership skills. When Hillary contemptuously dismissed the impact of “words” as opposed to “actions,” Obama countered by insisting that the next President’s ability to inspire the citizenry to greater personal political responsibility was essential. And he’s right. Even Barack Obama will not be able to move forward on the huge, difficult changes we need without overwhelming public backing, because, despite the current popularity of the word “change,” no one likes it. ***** The American public is gradually awakening to the realization that our next President can break political gridlock only through charismatic, trustworthy leadership. This realization is less fun for Hillary, whose many talents currently lie elsewhere.   more »

When the other Presidential candidates hear Obama’s speech in Iowa tonight (1/4/08), they cannot but feel daunted to compete with the world’s most formidable political opponent since Bill Clinton. Tenacious fighters all, yet must they wish, if for only a moment, that they too, along with the rest of us, could just sit down, shut up, and let him lead. For Obama’s spirit gives us hope, and hope has been hard to come by lately. ***** Even those hearing Obama speak for the first time tonight must recognize his brilliance, eloquence, and depth of passion, his commitment and strong faith in America. It was a soaring speech, a great speech, one for the ages. ***** Finally again, we have a leader we can follow, we can trust. I for one am ready to be led by Barack Obama. ***** I wish he could step right into Bush’s shoes. ***** By this time next week, a majority of Americans will have joined him; the rest will scramble on board soon enough. Because tonight, Obama took on the mantle of Kennedy, of Lincoln, even Dr. King, the greatest speaker and moral leader America has ever seen. ***** If you’ve not yet heard him speak, please google “YouTube,” type “Obama” in the search box, and watch any of his speeches. Tonight’s speech would be a good place to start, or the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner speech earlier in Iowa, or any campaign ad. All his speaking events are available on YouTube. ***** Governor Huckabee’s win was also one for the people, and against the entrenched political and corporate powers-that-be, because Huckabee too is a trustworthy patriot of conviction and principle, though not nearly so broad-banded as Obama. I am proud to see that, at least tonight in Iowa, American democracy, howsoever greatly outspent, still works. ***** Hillary Clinton will always be my idol and a great great public servant, but through no fault of her own, she is a partisan polarizing figure, and were she even electable, which she is not, I cannot predict for her any more success with Congress than the brilliant Nancy Pelosi. With respect to demonstrated judgment and useful experience, Obama is the wiser, humbler, and more able leader. And I am just as thrilled to have the opportunity to support a minority candidate for President as I would have been to support an equally electable and capable woman. ***** Like John Edwards, who is truly a great American, Obama is a staunch friend of the working class, yet stronger than Edwards in intellectual depth and breadth, charisma, consensus-building skills, and in holding the visionary and cooperative global perspectives America needs. ***** Republicans, Independents and Democrats of all persuasions already love Obama. No one can think of a word to say against him--they're embarrassed to, because there's nothing to say. He will make mistakes, as all leaders do, greatly tested as they are, but Barack Obama will win the Presidential election in November with the largest turnout and victory America has seen, and with the warmest well-wishes of every nation across the globe. Our best and most-beloved President may yet follow our (however well-intentioned and hapless) worst. ***** I am so moved by the courage and selflessness of this good man, this healer. God bless Barack Obama, and God bless America.   more »

Make no mistake, only a President embodying a combination of trustworthiness, charisma, confidence, and instantaneous brilliant articulation of principled policies can lead everyday Americans into pressing Congress for sweeping policy reforms in a multitude of urgent issue-areas. A trustworthy, kick-ass leader unafraid to lead will cut through the crap and point us toward truth and away from hucksterism, using his reputation for straight-shooting to aggressively and successfully pursue policy changes....   more »

Peaceful political arrangements in the Middle East are a good place to start, but real and lasting peace will come only when, one-by-one, we in the United States and Iran and Iraq and China and Israel and Palestine and everywhere else, we Christians and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and atheists alike, first humbly strive to embrace peace in our own hearts, endure injustices without adding to their sum, renounce violent resolution of conflicts, and offer to all others in this and every nation that same forgiveness, acceptance, and love we so long for ourselves (the universal “Golden Rule.”)   more »

Breach of trust Originally published in the Frederick News-Post, November 07, 2007 By Katherine Heerbrandt A week before Sen. Barbara Mikulski visited Frederick County extolling the economic promise of Fort Detrick's expansion, Keith Rhodes, chief technologist for the Government Accountability Office, told members of Congress that the proliferation of high-level biolabs raises serious questions about public safety. "The more BSL-4 labs there are, the more opportunity for mistakes and the more opportunities for release," Rhodes told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Oct. 4. Since 9/11 the number of labs researching the most virulent pathogens -- those with no cure -- grew from two to 15. With no central oversight of the growing number of labs, and disincentives inherent in reporting safety breaches, the security and operations of BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs are in question. The oversight of these labs is "fragmented and relies on self-policing. High-risk labs have health risks for individual lab workers as well as the surrounding community. The risks due to accidental exposure or release can never be completely eliminated, and even labs within sophisticated biological research programs, including those most extensively regulated, have had and will continue to have safety failures," Rhodes said. Burning to spend the billions unleashed for biodefense research, the feds rushed to act with little consideration of the consequences. A sadly familiar refrain. The U.S. Army War College's 2005 "Assessing Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat" concludes money was spent with no analysis of the bioterrorism threat, which it called "systematically and deliberately exaggerated" by this administration. More probable than a bioterrorist attack is that we infect ourselves by theft, design or mishap. With every new lab opened, every square foot added, the risk increases, according to the GAO. The Associated Press produced an interactive map that reveals biolab breaches in the U.S. (http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/biohazards/) As recently as June, anthrax bacteria was found on a freezer handle, light switch and shoes in a changing room at USAMRIID. With stories of accidents, breaches of protocol and incompetence from biolabs emerging with disturbing regularity, Detrick's refusal to participate in a public meeting isn't surprising. Why subject itself to more national attention when biolabs are under assault? The request came from County Commissioner David Gray, who issued a statement in August saying that federal officials ignored policy in their Environmental Impact Statement by not seeking alternate sites for the labs. Detrick agreed to meet, then backed out, offering a private meeting with county commissioners. Gray wanted to bring community members and the press. Detrick declined that offer, too. Detrick has already done its duty, says spokesperson Eileen Mitchell, providing ample opportunity for public comment and complying with federal regulations. Maybe they weren't counting on anyone actually reading the EIS, but local attorney Barry Kissin and Beth Willis have made a thorough study of it, culminating in a 17-page statement including tough questions for Detrick officials. At best, the EIS is a cursory attempt to comply with federal guidelines. At worst, it ignores documented breaches and blithely concludes that any danger is "negligible." The lack of serious effort in such a critical report is yet another example of the arrogance characterizing the federal government's tactics in the name of keeping America safe from terrorists. Wave the flag and our brains shut down? Undeterred by Detrick's refusal, Gray will have his forum at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Winchester Hall. But it will take more than the usual 20 to 25 regulars to convince a majority of commissioners that the EIS is severely flawed and deserves a court review. It's your last chance. Make it count. kheerbrandt@yahoo.com Please send comments to webmaster or contact us at 301-662-1177. Copyright 1997-07 Randall Family, LLC. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate or redistribute in any form. The Frederick News-Post Privacy Policy. Use of this site indicates your agreement to our Terms of Service.   more »

Why all the subterfuge and indirection? Let's just get down to it, be straightforward and direct: Instead of dragging U.S. troops, diplomats, politicians, reporters, and the rest of us citizens into the Middle East holocaust, why not just drop all our stupidly transparent political pretenses and hand over the whole bloody mess to the corporations? Let’s just give them all the depressing tasks related to stealing and controlling the oil, let them go ahead and divvy up all the various conquest-and-occupation tasks--and of course, the profits, too--but they were going to get those anyway. Our expensive, time-consuming national hand-wringing is such a waste. Why elaborately go through all those pointlessly unsettling motions of giving a damn, all those silly political and journalistic rituals intended I suppose to ease our way into Middle East hegemony—when our very professional corporations could get the job done much more efficiently and thoughtfully, well out of the public eye. Why should we Americans have to be involved at all (except of course a few staggeringly-wealthy shareholders, who can't help themselves.) Why should the rest of us even have to pull ourselves away from our video games and shopping and stuff to think about any of this distressing business? What does it have to do with us? It’s not like we have any illusions anymore that the war has anything to do with our consent, our safety, or our future well-being. We're clear already that we'll get nothing out of Bush’s endless war but more debts and enemies, so why must we also participate in all the suffering—or even watch it unfold? The corporations could easily buy up all their own weapons, hire and train their own militaries, attack and conquer (whomever), grab up their own oilfields, bribe and terrorize their own collaborators, subdue and exploit foreign populations, and write and produce their own media propaganda--as in fact they already do now--without the U.S. government and citizenry being so embarrassingly dragged into the whole mess to provide political cover. The corporations obviously don’t need our citizen support or even our (present-day) tax money. They've managed to move forward on their agenda quite nicely for many years without any of that. And if we're no help to them, we're certainly no bother to them, either, as we've clearly decided to roll over and play dead, asking polite permission for only a few brief opportunities to attempt to dignify our/their actions with silent moments of protest and mourning. Insufficient to maintain a shred of dignity? Then to heck with faking it. Just make it official, give them carte blanche. They're running the show already anyway. Let them just take whatever they want, however and whenever they want to, from whomever, wherever; they’re going to do it anyway, and the niceties of humanitarian and spiritual and political ideals be damned, because, don't forget, we’re still, by far, the biggest bully on the block, and so long as we are, such niceties aren't worth our trouble. Are they? Unless of course empire-building is not what America is about…. Unless of course we’re willing to risk peace, and turn our national will and resources toward cooperating with all the world’s peoples everywhere to end violence and solve our problems together, as one. (So let's just do it. Now.)    more »

My letter below was published in the Washington Post Book World on Sunday, September 2, 2007. Following my letter is the reviewer's own response to my criticism, and then a somewhat-satirical, but-you-get-the-point response to the reviewer describing the review that I think he should have written if he wanted to be fair. Nancy Pace's letter: "Andrew Nagorski apparently thinks Giles MacDonogh shouldn't have bothered to dredge up all those nasty facts about the occupation of Germany in After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation, because, after all, the Germans had it coming, and Allied cruelties were understandable considering their pain and sacrifices (Book World, "The Squall After The Whirlwind," Aug. 26). In fact, while we're at it, why don't we just throw away the entire historical record of suffering by losers of all wars throughout history, because they all deserved what they got? From now on, let's write only one-sided histories glorifying the bloody actions of wars' winners and keep on using history primarily to perpetuate the myth that conflicts have only one side worth listening to. That way, we can have more wars. Justifying fresh injustices by pointing out past injustices does nothing to end the cycle of violence and retribution. Every war, like every retaliatory "peace," sows the bloody dragon seeds reaped in future wars. Good historians rightly tell the story of the suffering on both sides of wars and about how all the leaders failed to keep the peace."   more »

I just read Sally Jenkins' sports column in the 8/22/07 Washington Post, about Michael Vick and his dog-fighting choices.... Jenkins said that people who train animals to fight, and then make them fight, are "brutal...sleaze…wallowing in gore by choice...out of sheer dumb meanness...punishing...torturing...battering...killing...enslaving and tormenting...with unnerving ruthlessness.... (Fighting animals is) a bloodsport...barbaric...a gratuitous form of cruelty...a calculating, deliberate and sustained cruelty…." If anyone did such things to people, Jenkins says, we would call it genocidal fascism. No. We would call it military training, and war, and we would perpetrate such crimes without thought, everywhere, every day. We would take innocent, gentle, ethical young men, and put them through military (or terrorist) training, and then throw them into combat, to kill and maim or be killed and maimed, along with their buddies. We would condition and indoctrinate our soldiers into forgetting everything they’ve ever learned about how to treat other people. We would turn them into knee-jerk mental, physical and emotional monsters, so that they can efficiently “do their jobs" without thinking of their victims as human beings. After excruciating training, we would turn them loose upon strangers, many of whom are themselves innocents protecting their own homes and families. We would make our young heroes into snipers and bombers and interrogators and other cold-blooded executioners, to do “work” they can do only because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking of whole populations as demonized “others," as "the enemy." Wars are about powerful, misguided leaders taking for themselves whatever they want—resources, power, money, land—by killing large swaths of people. But soldiers are carefully taught a very different kind of morality, a kind of contextual fuzzy logic that ethically "covers" their bloodiest actions for as long as they can believe that they’re fighting, killing, and dying to protect their friends and families, and to further their country’s noblest ideals and purposes. Soldiers cling to the illusion that that their jobs are necessary and valuable and moral, in hopes that their losses and sacrifices are not in vain, that they have not wasted their lives--and others'. Unfortunately, when soldiers come home from wars, few can morally rectify the gore they've participated in with their peacetime ethical, spiritual and religious belief systems about what it means to be humane, caring, good—all the understandings which make relationships work, and which make life worth living. Many veterans basically go insane for years. Others are unstable or crazy for the rest of their lives. Everyone says training and fighting animals is an outrage. We wouldn't, we couldn’t, we shouldn’t do this to a dog. So why do we keep doing it to people? It's time to reconsider the inevitability of our centuries-old practice of solving problems through violence. Human conflict is perfectly natural and unavoidable, since people will always have competing interests, misunderstandings, old grievances.... In fact, conflict is very beneficial, because it nearly always points to inequities or confusions which need addressing. But violent resolutions of conflict only make things worse. We can teach all people to resolve conflicts peacefully just as easily as we can raise them to respond to problems violently. It's time for America the beautiful, the once and future leader of the free world, to take the first step toward committing to building a world culture of peace.   more »

(Excerpt): Americans express outrage at attacks on American soldiers, but turn a deaf ear to the pleas of millions of Iraqi war refugees desperate for asylum from our wars. We express indignation when an Israeli dies, but can’t be bothered to count—much less mourn—the untold Muslim victims of our Middle East wars. This double standard would shock us if the oceans of propaganda we swim in daily did not prevent our awareness of it. (Excerpt): Terrorism, like war, is a continuation of politics “by other means.” Grieving and jobless Muslim youth “join up” with terrorist forces in hopes of prevailing against regional and international foes, just as American youths patriotically join the armed services to donate their young bodies in service to their government’s many goals, and end up killing innocent strangers, or dying, or being maimed, only for the mercenary protection and expansion of far-flung corporate/economic interests. (Excerpt): Our country has never been invaded by Muslims, nor, credibly, by anyone else. We spend an annual military budget larger than the next fourteen largest nations combined--in total, 45% of the entire military spending in the whole world--on attacks on and within the homelands of foreigners who have never come anywhere near our homes. We have over 600 military bases all over the world. All this pretense of “defense” of America...even though former Secretary of State Madeline Albright guilelessly admitted after 9/11 that “…’homeland security’ is something people hadn’t really thought of before.” (Excerpt): The literate class in the Muslim world certainly blames the U.S. for oppressing Muslim states. As cruelly and certainly as war kills both body and spirit, so do economic and political exploitations kill, maim and warp lives. Western nations have been meddling politically, financially and militarily throughout the twentieth century, repressing democratic movements and political freedoms throughout all Arab nations, propping up Western-friendly dictators, failing to promote good governance and economic advancement, and neglecting to address rapidly-changing social, demographic and economic developmental challenges. Islamic extremism will continue to thrive until Muslim youth everywhere are offered real hope of political and economic improvements. (Excerpt): Angry Muslims believe that we want to weaken and divide the Arab world, shake the foundations of Islamic belief, and dismantle the structures of Muslim society—their culture, traditions, and their approaches to justice, government, rights, and freedom, however controversial. They believe we want to lead their young people astray, control and limit their use of and profit from their resources, and emasculate and neutralize all opposition to our agenda by spreading our competing western values and influence. (Excerpt): Many Muslims believe that we in the West very much want to keep their countries backward, afflicted, poor and miserable, so we can more easily exploit their riches—their oil, land and human resources. They attribute America’s historical political and economic success not to a morally, economically and politically superior system of government, but to a two-hundred year exploitation of the richest swath of virgin territory and resources that the world has ever known, on the backs of slaves and slaughtered Native Americans, using a form of government primarily supportive of the growth of wealth (the U.S. was originally settled by capitalist business ventures in Jamestown, Plymouth, etc.) and backed up by a growing military force which turned next to support for similar profitable exploitations in the third world. (Excerpt): The West’s war against Islam is considered criminally immoral by the millions of peaceful/innocent non-“enemy” Muslims who have been the “collateral damage” of western aggressions. Like Americans, Arabs have the right to keep and/or sell their resources whenever and at whatever price they prefer. They feel their only hope is to resist and endure Western onslaughts until their undeserved suffering redemptively earns them international sympathy and respect—and/or breaks the American economy—as their resistance broke the national economies of the late great Soviet and British empires. (Excerpt): Muslims pray that the U.S. will lose their political will for unending war, that media backlash from our allies will eventually convince us of endless war’s tragic and wasteful effects. A survey of 47 major nations by Pew Research recently demonstrated that “global public opinion (is) increasingly wary of the world’s dominant nations (and) disapproving of their leaders. Anti-Americanism is extensive, as it has been for the past five years…. Global support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism is shrinking, and distrust of American leadership and foreign policy is growing. Not only is there worldwide support for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but there also is considerable opposition to U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan.”(Excerpt): The biggest problem with fighting an endless war on terrorism is that such a war does nothing at all to resolve the terrorist problem, while creating more terrorists. Wars on terrorism are wars no one wins and everyone loses. (Excerpt): Millions of Christians currently live in Arab countries, sharing very much the same culture as their Muslim counterparts, just as Muslims in America share much of our American culture. Unarguably, some Muslim leaders are intransigent and fearful, and some fundamentalist Muslims are as crazy as loons—just like some of our own leaders and fundamentalist Christians, who would nuke whole Arab nations right now. But just because each culture has its crazies doesn’t give anyone the right to attack all Christians or all Muslims in “self-defense.” No society can prevent all senseless, tragic injustices, but we do not have to add to their sum. (Excerpt): Religion can be misused in any land, whether Christian or Jewish or Muslim—to win votes, to gain political power and control, to further various nationalist and ethnic motives. Just as political electioneering in America relies upon familiar, emotion-stirring patriotic and Judeo/Christian words and images, politics in Arab lands come clothed in the garb of Islam. Like our own neoconservative opportunists, radical Islamic opportunists urge their political ideologies and associated plans—whether for a utopian future embracing Sharia law and rejecting secularism and all things foreign, or for world domination and a global empire run by international corporations—all these unscrupulous politicians (whether clerical or secular) urge their dark visions using religion as a motivator for change, and not the other way around. (Excerpt): The very best way to reverse Islamic terrorism, though, is step-by-step, the same way it was created, by reversing the causes of anti-Americanism and extremist violence. Step-by-step, we can move away from a foreign policy of violence-based international competition toward one embracing non-violent global cooperation. Neither approach to ending terrorism is simple, obvious or guaranteed. But only one has any chance of succeeding.   more »

(Excerpt:) I predict that unscrupulous and frightened campaign schemers and strategists within the Republican Party (such as Karl Rove) will convince their followers of the necessity of focusing the 2008 presidential campaign on xenophobia—fear of outsiders. Like all good fascists throughout history, they’ll find themselves “reluctantly forced” to flood the airways with compelling commercials, "information," "news stories," "facts" and "statistics,"convincing a nervous American public that the only thing standing between “us” and a fatal, up-close-and-personal, all-out collision with a horde of terrible “others” so not-like-us as to be sub-human, is to vote Republican. ((Excerpt:) Right-wing talk-show extremists—politicians, preachers, “experts,” business leaders—terrorists all—are already terrorizing the public with their visions of danger, scarcity, and death, hammering their variations on their single essential theme: “If you don’t vote Republican, you and your loved ones, sooner than you think, will be left alone to live and die, poor and horribly, because of “outsiders.’” Excerpt:) The great threats mankind faces today ignore borders, arising as they do from a sense of disunity. These threats, which cannot be solved competitively, but only through global cooperation, include nuclear proliferation, organized crime, poverty, infectious diseases and unsupportive health conditions and attitudes, environmental degradation, armed conflicts of all kinds, including wars both within and among nations, terrorism, the global arms trade, mass migrations, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, pornography, homelessness, hate, fear, anxiety, civic alienation, loss of morality, excessive taxation, crumbling infrastructures, more and more “enemies,” violence itself…. The list of threats without borders is long and continues to grow rapidly. (Excerpt): The only way to lick ‘em is to join ‘em. Instead of holding at arm’s length the world’s hungry, envious and angry, instead of arming dictators or beating enemies into submission, or bombing them flat, we can change the way we feel and act toward "others." We can learn to view all people as our brothers and sisters, and to see all hostile actions as a cry for help. (Excerpt:)Yes, Virginia, there really are some very bad terrorists out there, and not a few of them are currently holding top positions in the Republican Party.   more »

(excerpt): Rachel Corrie had no affection for bullies. Burning with a wish to stand up to power and deadly violence, she seemed born to resist injustice. I think she would have been just as eager to oppose Palestinians attacking innocent Israelis, were she drawn to their plight first. (Excerpt): I was saddened to think that some who cherish holocaust narratives like The Diary of Anne Frank would try to censor Rachel’s inspired voice and words for partisan reasons. I doubt any peaceful Jew seeing this play would urge such censorship. (Excerpt): Peaceful Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other Americans are often so aggressively intimidated by their own extremist factions that they rarely speak out publicly against the vengeful actions, bloody rhetoric, and sheer barbarism of all they see, on all sides. Caught within the context of a violent century’s heightened emotions, most moderates—peaceful Jews and Christians and Muslims and citizens of all nationalities everywhere—are too frightened to say “Enough” against even the extremist voices within their own groups. (Excerpt): As long as demagogues and partisan extremists freely pressure and intimidate moderates, worldwide anti-Islamism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism will continue to grow. And if the hot-blooded AIPAC successfully pushes extremists in America and Israel into another bloodbath, this time against Iran, the potential for anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Islamic blowback upon moderates in all these groups everywhere will be as terrible as the cataclysmic impact upon the direct victims of the war. (Excerpt): Extremist Jewish leaders preaching the wisdom of ten-eyes-for-an-eye, and depicting Israel as a tiny beleaguered island within a vast sea of murderous Muslims all wanting to kill Jews and “erase Israel from the map” are as repellently manipulative as extremist Palestinian leaders claiming to be merely a defenseless band of ragtag refugees confronting the combined wrath of the world’s largest and most powerful military forces, or American Christian-extremists sounding the alarm of American invasion by rapacious outsiders and infidels, or American patriots bristling with nuclear arms , self-righteously claiming to be the victims of nations working frantically to develop even a single one. (Excerpt): Violence, or violent extremism, or terrorism—that is, resorting to violence to resolve conflicts—turns out to be “the problem” itself, and not, as many have tried to persuade us, any particular ideology, ethnicity, religious tradition, or national affiliation. The burning question is always: who is committed to non-violent resolution of conflicts, and who isn’t?   more »

(excerpts): Consider: what if an imagined, vastly more powerful Muslim alliance had invaded and occupied the United States five years ago? We wouldn’t be “generating vigorous, sustained condemnation” about an occasional American suicide bomber way over in Iraq, consumed as we would we be already, here at home in America, with simple day-to-day survival, with burying and mourning our million dead brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, with caring for five times that million beloved wounded, with desperately fleeing the violence along with the millions of our fellow Americans abandoning their homes and trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and dreams anywhere else…. Just who is it, Mr. Friedman, who is “erasing basic norms of civilization” by terrorizing—Islamic suicide bombers, or our own invading and occupying armies? Both, of course. I have no doubt that many extremist Muslims are every bit as crazy as some of our very own home-grown terrified fundamentalist Christians and Jews who stand ready to nuke whole Islamic nations right now with no more questions asked. Yes, there are violent, ignorant, vengeful people everywhere, and this is a big big problem. And adding more violence, suffering, anger, and fear to all of their lives is being done to what good purpose? (Excerpts): Friedman argues that it’s up to Muslim leaders to “remove this cancer” of terrorist violence. No. It is up to western leaders to remove this cancer of military-backed hegemony, this cancer of “might makes right,” this cancer of trampling the rights and traditions of smaller and weaker peoples. Unless Mr. Friedman and I can somehow agree upon which of our children and grandchildren we’re willing to trade for a steady flow of cheap Middle Eastern oil, and which of our cities we’ll willing to exchange for bigger earnings for American stockholders, we should support leaders capable of shifting our nation and the world into to a new era of non-violent global cooperation, for the sake of all in both the east and the west.   more »

I know that there are a great many peace-loving, non-racist Jews in Israel and the U.S. who would welcome a non-apartheid government with equal civil rights for all people in Israel/Palestine, and who reject war as a way to resolve conflict as thoroughly as they reject terrorism.... I believe that Ahmadinejad has said he wants to wipe the current war-mongering/anti-Islamic regime off the map; he explained to my satisfaction that he was mistranslated--he didn't mean harm to peaceful Israelis who see Palestinians as part of a universal brotherhood.... And I also think we Americans still hope to solve our oil problem by controlling the flow and price of Iraqi (and Iranian?) oil, and that's one reason the oil companies and neocons behind Bush pushed him (sad patriotic misguided dupe that he is) into going to war in Iraq in the first place.... I think some fundamentalist Christian beliefs about Armageddon and the Apocolypse (they are too unloving to give my attention to) are behind much of the support for anti-Islamic-pro-Israel lobbying in America too....I'm sorry to think also that much of the American mainstream media is controlled by people who think like this article describes.... Sadly, most Americans think like this too, because of the brainwashed and brainwashing media.... When America asked, "Why do they hate us?" the media did not tell us.... Our truly inadequate educational system where history and civic curricula are determined by ignorant locals who are equally brainwashed must also be transformed to a more global, caring message, not the empirical, right-makes-might message, the America-is-better-and-thus-must-rule message many schools put out now.... I think all of the forces cited in the article (click on "more" below) are pushing us all to get into a catastrophic war with Iran for all of the reasons given.... But we won't, because we will all join hands around the world and our peace will overcome them....Thank you, Corvuswire, whoever you are, for your courage in writing/sharing your thoughts, most of which I agree with....I hope that the AIPAC/Anti-Defamation League will see that I love Jews but don't love hateful messages.... I believe in non-violent, caring, humanitarian solutions to world problems.... Please read this short piece (click on "more" below) and after you read it, write to njcpace@gmail.com to tell me what you think of it? Thanks.... Nancy Pace   more »

(Excerpt): My husband hates politics, but when I have a nightmare, he listens kindly to my ranting. Here’s my bad dream: President Bush suddenly dies of some inscrutable injury secretly inflicted by the next President Dick Cheney, who appoints a worthless investigative commission, goes scot-free, and uses his brief presidency to orchestrate the succession of his fave cohort-in-conspiracies-against-the-Constitution, David S. Addington. (Excerpt): The few times I have inflicted my politics upon my husband, he’s listened with resigned patience. But this time he gently suggested that I might consider dreaming about something more likely to happen than Vice-President Cheney overthrowing the government.... (Excerpt): Because no one would benefit more from an assassination than Cheney and Addington…. Because no one has done more to undermine the Constitution than Cheney and Addington, however pure their intentions in amassing great power to “save America” (their way)…. Because no one has so much to answer for, or so many wolves at their door, than Cheney and Addington…. I doubt not that Cheney and Addington are deeply unsatisfied with their measly vast powers. I’m confident that they feel increasingly marginalized by their own party, and threatened by mounting opposition from Congress, the State Department, the CIA, not a few top military brass, and even by President Bush, who recently reversed many of Cheney’s war-on-terrorism policies, who apparently is drawing back from Cheney’s influence, and who may even now be feeling the first tingles of fear in Cheney’s presence…. Am I crazy even to wonder whether Cheney and Addington would actually consider using their old military or CIA contacts to quietly engineer an insider-job presidential assassination? Apparently, neither of these men has had a single qualm about wasting hundreds of thousands of lives in the Middle East to further their purposes; what difference would one more life make, when you've spent your whole life pursuing executive power and only one man stands in your way? I admit I haven't had any real experience with power politics...but I've read Shakespeare.... Cheney has deflected negative attention in the past by creating diversions. If Congress calls Cheney’s bluff regarding non-compliance with the NARA executive order (and just why is it that Bush hasn’t stepped forward to interfere with this, hmmmm...?) or if the Justice Department crowds Cheney with BAE slush fund allegations, a presidential assassination might prove as effective and timely a diversion as a war with Iran (Cheney's other all-purpose fall-back diversion.) Here’s a great comment recently posted by “razzi” in response to an internet article about Cheney: “Let's have no game-playing with a man this dangerous who's just a heartbeat away from the presidency. Hearings on his abuse of authority and war crimes need to begin immediately and need to persist for the remainder of his term so that in the event Bush is incapacitated, the case for instant impeachment will already have been built. The evidence needed for an eventual war crimes trial after his term is over also needs to be built. This is a...man who needs to be investigated, prosecuted, and punished for what he is doing to the republic.”   more »

...Whenever anyone in any country has done something injurious to any other, or left undone what could have helped another, no matter who we were, no matter in the name of what ideology we acted, we were wrong. And whenever we chose to support human life, we were acting aright. Politics is as simple—and as complicated—as that. We either contribute to another’s fear, or we offer them loving support. We either perceive their anger and wrong-headedness as an anguished cry for help, or we attack and punish them. We reject them, or we contribute to their acceptance and well-being. We light a candle or leave them in darkness. We offer them war or contribute to their peace. We lift them up or we abandon them. We share their dreams or take them away. We help them or we hurt them. We choose love over fear, or we quibble amongst ideologies to gain power, and end up losing shared life itself on our tiny blue planet.   more »