Peace

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have breasts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.

It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

I re-broadcast here Mother's Day for Peace's beautiful homage to the anti-war promise of that is Mother Day's, on this my 10th anniversary as a mother.

"The power to end the war is in the people's voices, not in Congress' ability to fund the war".
John Edwards

I just got off a conference call between John Edwards and several members of the blogosphere.

John Edwards has just launched an initiative to end the war in Iraq. With Support The Troops, End The War, Edwards is asking Americans to reclaim patriotism from the Bush Administration on this Memorial Day by holding events all across the country that show We The People's support of the troops by demanding an end of the war :

Take Action May 26th, 27th, 28th
As citizens, we honor and support our troops for their service and sacrifice.

As Americans, we are blessed by that sacrifice and support, which keeps us safe and keeps us strong.

As patriots, we call on our government to support our troops in the most important way it can - by ending this war and bringing them home.

This Memorial Day weekend, we will all take responsibility for the country we love and the men and women who protect it. We will volunteer, we will pray, and we will speak out. Each of us has a responsibility to act, a duty to our troops and to each other. Support the troops. End the war.

In the Q&A Arianna Huffington asked if he was going to ask other Democrats in Congress to put pressure on those who didn't vote against Bush's veto. He said that, indeed, that was part of the strategy of this call to action. He has been running ads in DC focused on members of Congress; yet the second veto makes it clear that unless the American people take the war into their own hands, we will continue to have the political push and pull going on between Congress and the White House.

Press Release after the jump

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Some years back I read Jared Diamond's excellent book Collapse. It covers a wide range of issues and locations in its analysis of the collapse of civilizations and draws parallels with modern soceity and past societies with the intent of finding ways in which our society can survive rather than collapse.

One of the most important points to me in the book was the critical role of forests in ANY society's economic well being and long term stability. A contrast between Haiti and the Dominican Republic dramatically showed the difference between a nation that was nearly completely deforested and one that preserved its forests. Preserving forests maintained soil productivity as well as protected fisheries that were downstream.

Global warming gives us added reason to be tree huggers. Trees are the most effective long term way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Nothing else can do so much at such low cost. Combine their protection of the soil, water resources, downstream fisheries, etc. with their ability to sequester carbon, and preservation of forests and tree planting are about the best thing any of us can do to stabilize human society in the face of current challenges.

An area where this is most critical is one that is dear to my heart: the Middle East. I am a pro-Israel Jew. I am also pro-Palestine. But having read a great deal of history, I know that the existance of a Jewish nation is very important to me and to my children. Even the most welcoming of nations has turned anti-Semitic in the past, and so the well being of Israel seems to me kind of like an insurance policy for all Jews. It gives us a place where we can go if and when the nations that hold the diaspora turn on us...again.

Even when the words in question have had 40 years' worth of sacred, timeless truth seeping into each and every one of them.

What is "The Beloved Community" and why should we care?

John Lewis wants you to know the answer.

First, the official explanation:

“The Beloved Community” is a term that was first coined in the early days of the 20th century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation. However, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who popularized the term and invested it with a deeper meaning which has captured the imagination of people of good will all over the world.

For Dr. King, The Beloved Community was not a lofty utopian goal to be confused with the rapturous image of the Peaceable Kingdom, in which lions and lambs coexist in idyllic harmony. Rather, The Beloved Community was for him a realistic, achievable goal that could be attained by a critical mass of people committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence.

Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.

How does John Lewis tie in with that description of The Beloved Community, though?

From Eric Zorn's weblog on the Chicago Tribune website comes this poignant reminder of the human cost of the neocons' illegal and immoral war for oil in the Middle East:

Soldier's dad tells Bush, 'This war is wrong'

The two-page letter is signed from the "proud father of a fallen soldier."

A little more than six weeks ago, his soul a cauldron of grief and rage, Richard Landeck, 56, of Wheaton addressed and mailed it to President Bush.

And since he’s yet to receive an acknowledgment or reply, he asked me if I’d help get his message out.

"My voice, and that of many other frustrated Americans is not being heard," he said.

It’s the least I can do, I replied.

"My son was killed in Iraq on February 2, 2007," says the letter. "His name is Captain Kevin Landeck..."