>Regarding the discussion between Brian Douglas and Dennis Foster....
whew! ok, trying to catch up here,
>"Paradigm shift" is a much overworked phrase, but it looks to me that that
>is what the human race is up against - we have to transform beyond the use
>of war to solve problems.
for those of us who have been looking for/working on such a shift
for twenty or more years, it might seem overworked; but i suspect
that for most Americans, its an idea that is either slowly dawning
or yet to dawn at all.
>As the Dalai Lama says, "Today, the world is so
>small and so interdependent that the concept of war has become
>anachronistic, an outmoded approach. "
which was exactly the point i wanted to make to the two pro-war
fellows downtown, altho the circumstances did not promote a
very elegant expression of it ;}
>But how? I definitely get enraged at the actions of both George Bush and
>Saddam Hussein - and many, many other dictators who do just as terrible
>things as Saddam .. Osama bin Laden, Noriega, Pinochet, and a
>long list of others.......
which, Brian, would be my response to your question about Saddam.
its not that he isnt a Bad Guy(tm). its not that his policies dont suck.
its not that the world would, in fact, probably be a kinder gentler place
without him in power. But..
There are many, many people who feel that Hussein* is in fact, _not_
10000x worse than those listed above, or, well, than George Bush.
Most of those people are not in the United States, i dont think; since
here the propaganda machine has been working long and hard to
convince us just how much a Really Nasty Dude he is. With our
conditioning to two-second edits and instant everything, we've all
forgotten that just a few short years ago, we were all chuckling
at an animated Hussein in bed with Satan (on South Park, for
those with higher cultural aspirations ;) Was he less evil then?
Are the other nasty regimes and dictatorships around the world
only aspiring to Axis of the Almost Evil, to paraphrase the essay
that wasnt written by John Cleese?
[*as i am writing, it occurs to me how common it is to refer to
the man by his first name, Saddam - which, unless you are on
'first-name basis' with someone, is considered demeaning and
patronizing. *Not* that i think he deserves our respect, but how
often are we talking about George and Dick?] [and ok, i suppose
im doing the same talking to Brian here, whom i dont know. But
sharing a list, we're a bit closer to informality, i hope, and anyway,
i wanted to respond to his point in particular. But, as Tom Lehrer
would say, I digress.]
So then the question becomes, as i suspect it already is for a
number of us in the peace movement, why _this_ dictator, in
_this_ country, at _this_ particular juncture in history. And what
ever gave us the notion that we could go in and shove democracy
down anyone's throat - ? Those who are working a path of
recovery know that the First Step is to admit your own screwups
and take responsibility for them. Its not, everyone else thinks im
drinking too much, gambling too much, screwing too many people,
a truly repugnant dictator. Hussein is (insert scathing adjective
here), but gosh darn it, he's just not OUR (repeat scathing adjective).
Bush, on the other hand, is. And as i wrote to the President yesterday,
before you would remove the splinter from thy brother's eye, first
take out the beam from thine own.
>However, the discussion here is really violence vs. non-violence, and it
>always comes to this - in just _this_ instance violence is
>justified... <snip>
>The question is how to _really_ transmute it, transform it? The age-old
>question - how do you love your enemy?
to help answer this question, i would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend
getting ahold of Starhawk's novel, "The Fifth Sacred Thing". As
most of you probably know, Starhawk has been at the forefront
of - gosh, name a cause dear to activist's hearts she _hasnt_
been involved in - for twenty-some years. She is also a witch,
working with the energies of the Goddess/Mother Earth.
In this book, she combines these viewpoints and several decades
of experience in building and transforming communities. To call
it a visionary or utopian novel is almost to do it a disservice (but
then, what hasnt become a disposable catch phrase these days..)
As briefly as i can, let me summarize. The book is set in the Bay Area,
roughly fifty years from now. It supposes a world in which something
like the worst-case scenario of the Bush junta has had its way with
the U.S. and democracy no longer exists - for most of the country.
For the Bay Area, tho, things are different. When the Millenialists
(read: whatever fundie-multi-death-corporation regime you care to
picture) took over, Northern California seceded. At the time, there
was too much else to conquer, so for a few decades they'd gotten
away with building a world based on New Paradigm principles. But
now, they are about to be invaded by 'government' forces intent on
subduing them by force and appropriating the natural resources
they have held in guardianship.
The crux of the book is _exactly_ the question(s) posed here. How
do we do this and stay non-violent? Can we? Should we? Don't we
have to take up arms and defend ourselves, just this once?? The
way this question is struggled with and ultimately resolved is, in
my opinion, beautifully handled, and something we could probably
all profit from knowing about.
i would, in fact, be very interested in getting together with others
who would like to look at the solutions she presents as possibilities
to be explored for us here and now. (feel free to contact me off
list if you'd like to follow up on this).
back to the previous post:
>How do we pray for them? How do we
>pray for them and mean it?
its damn hard, thats for sure!! in another old favorite book, "The
Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment", he talks about the idea of
no resistance, and giving yourself permission to - ack, how to put
this at 2am with no book in front of me. Basically that you try to
do it, even if you dont _feel_ it, and dont beat yourself up for
not reaching some standard that you _think_ you should.
>..concentration on 'individual growth" tends to become an escape
>from the fact that we are interdependent and live in a world that affects
>us and to which we have a responsibility (contrary to the 'create your own
>world' gurus).
tho why cant we create our own world in which we act and interact
responsibly with everyone else's world..
im not sure that i totally agree with this, because again, i dont think
we can push transformation on anyone else when we haven't first
gone through it ourselves. However, i also understand that we do not
live in an era that really allows withdrawing into the wilderness or
hanging out at Walden Pond for a couple dozen summers while we
'find ourselves' (..and it turns out i was behind the couch the whole time..
ba da bing). Like everything else in our mad modern world, our personal
growth and transformation has to be done on the fly. Perhaps we
are cosmic highschool students, whose term papers were assigned
at the beginning of the quarter, only we blew them off until now
its Friday evening, the paper is due Monday morning, and we really
wanted to catch that show at the Grog Shop tomorrow - ?
>The Dalai Lama basic response to the situation is to pray, which of course,
>doesn't feel all that strong in the face of what is raining down on
>Iraq. I think I'll ask him what he means by prayer.
one reason i _dont_ agree with that essay going around that criticizes
the marches and actions is that i think any time we act with hope for
the future, its an act of prayer. When we gather together, when we
march, when we sing, when we look at the big papier-mache puppets
coming down the street, we are acting in the belief that we _can_
change things, we _can_ make a difference. Maybe that rally, that
parade, that art action itself wont change the system; we know
that. But hope, as they say, is the thing with feathers; and while we
Know that we must work for justice and pray for peace, we also
need - NEED - to join together and affirm our common belief that
a better world is possible.
i know this kind of dialogue isnt the usual for CNVN, and if we're
getting too far afield for the list, i'd be happy to move elsewhere
(Building Bridges, maybe?) But i am deeply grateful to see
conversation opening up here, and i hope you will forgive me taking
up so much space to yammer on. Let me just close with a brief
illustration that i have been working with for a couple years now.
Some good friends of ours are associated with a nature conservancy/
alternative community project in Indiana, and a couple summers back,
they decided to hold a roundtable discussion on Whats Wrong and
How Do We Fix It. Part one was whats wrong, part two was to be
the solutions part. Well, you know what happened?
The first discussion was lively and well attended. Everyone, it seems,
had something to bring up. Was it racism, classism, sexism, religious
intolerance, environmental devastation - ? The list of problems was
seemingly endless!
The second discussion went a little differently. Not as many people
showed up, and the discussion kept wandering back on to whats
wrong. Bitching, after all, is something we all do so well - ! But it
turned out that when it came to solving our problems, we weren't
so good at it. That might be a lot more like _work_, and hey, we
came to this fest for a vacation, as one attendee put it.
I guess my point is that in some ways, i see whats been posted
on here since i joined as the first discussion. Here's whats wrong
and plenty of it! But at last, it feels like we may be ready to start
the second discussion. And i hope you will accept this letter in that
spirit.
In Perfect Love and Faerie Dust
sade
http://www.geocities.com/gothikfaerie/faering/vendring.html
~*~*~Thee Faerie Ring Arts and Crafts webstore~*~*~
-<@ original faerie art, velvet cloaks & caps, costumery & decor @>-
Dragonfly Reel-gothic world folk~|~ http://www.mp3.com/Dragonfly_Reel
Defeat Mordor - http://www.codepink4peace.org - No War in Iraq
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