Monday, September 20, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Every Teacher a Peace Teacher
Document Actions
- Photo by Eva Blue.
Dismantling the Violence
To Teach Peace is to Teach Gandhi
for Today's World
Some say terrorism makes Gandhi irrelevant. Vandana Shiva says we need him more than ever.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Every War Has Two LosersCMCM member Haydn Reiss has a premiere screening next week of his new film at the Rafael (June 30 7:15pm with Norman Solomon and Alice Walker). This week Haydn and Norman came to the CMCM studios to discuss the film: | Site SearchUpcoming Classes
|
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Leymah Gbowee: A Powerful Voice for Peace
Leymah Gbowee’s commitment to nonviolent resistance helped stop the Liberian civil war. She now helps other women promote peace throughout Africa.
Document Actions
- Leymah Gbowee now lives in Accra, Ghana, where she is the executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network-Africa.Photo by Michael Angelo for Wonderland
Learn how a courageous group of women made the difference between war and peace in Liberia.
1. Watch the Trailer
2. Become a Dedicated Friend of YES! and get the DVD for free
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
George Tiller needs more than candlelight vigils | Salon Life
George Tiller needs more than candlelight vigils
The doctor's murder is domestic terrorism, and if our leaders don't
act boldly, there will be more violence
I am done with candlelight vigils.
It is good and necessary that people gather together at a candlelight
vigil to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller, murdered in cold blood
today at his Lutheran church by an assailant believed to be Montana
"Freeman" Scott Roeder. Tiller was a compassionate and courageous
doctor who provided abortion services to women in some of the most
distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone
horribly, tragically wrong. He provided services when no one else
would, and he was stubborn enough to fight against everyone who tried
to stop him. So it is right that people express their grief in public
ceremonies.
But I myself am done with candlelight vigils. I have participated in
too many of them, from 1993 with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in
Pensacola through the seven doctors, patient escorts and staff
murdered over the horrifying five-year period thereafter. I can never
forget the day before New Year's Eve in 1994. I was, at the time, CEO
of Planned Parenthood in Arizona, talking on the phone to Pensacola
patient escort June Barrett -- who had been wounded when her husband
and the clinic's Dr. John Britton were murdered by anti-abortion
zealot Rev. Paul Hill -- when I received another urgent call from a
friend whose granddaughter worked in Planned Parenthood's Brookline
clinic. The young woman had just witnessed the murder of two
co-workers by John Salvi.
Each time, we held vigils all over the country. We wept and we pledged
to continue our work. Which we did, increasingly, in isolation. We
were the ones who had been wronged, and yet we were labeled
controversial, to be shunned rather than supported. The murders were
only the tip of the iceberg, among over 6000 cases of violence,
vandalism, stalking, bombings, arson, invasions and other serious
harassment.
Later, during the nine years I served as president of Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, we dramatically beefed up our own
security while figuring out how to make our health centers
nevertheless welcoming to patients and workers alike. In fact, we got
so adept at the task that during post-911 anthrax scares, we provided
federal government agencies with model protocols for dealing with such
threats. But though self-sufficiency is valuable, a just society
should offer much more succor to citizens who are attacked.
That's why today, after what happened to George Tiller, I know that
the only thing that will assuage my personal grief over his shocking
loss is for leaders across our nation to join me in expressing outrage
at this heinous crime, this domestic terrorism. And yes, they need to
call it out in exactly those terms. That's what it is.
I want to hear massive outrage on the part of the community. I want it
to start with President Obama. His statement today is a good
beginning.
But that's not nearly enough. He must immediately outline an action
plan to increase federal protection for providers and clinics and call
for stringent enforcement of the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances
Act. He has an opportunity to make a speech that addresses women's
moral right to reproductive self-determination as passionately as his
brilliant speech about race did during the primary. He can and should
lead the nation to a larger and more productive conversation about the
complex choices women make, and why women deserve the respect,
equality and justice inherent in the right to choose to have, or not
have, a child. He should bring together pro-choice and anti-choice
leaders and get them to issue a joint statement decrying Tiller's
murder as well as all such violent opposition to one another's
efforts. Now that would be real common ground.
But even if the president did all of that, I would still not be ready
for another candlelight vigil. The change we need in our culture's
attitudes toward women's reproductive justice has to happen both
top-down and bottom-up.
When it comes to decrying Tiller's unspeakable murder, I want to hear
it from Congress. I want to hear it from clergy, the medical
profession, the media and civic leaders: "This kind of violation will
not be tolerated. Period." I want to see leaders and people at the
grassroots joining hands together in support of those who provide
women with reproductive health services, including abortion. I want
them to put the yellow armband on, to assume Tiller's name as so many
took on the Obama's middle name, Hussein, when he was disparaged
during the election. Doctors have a special responsibility. David Toub
M.D, MBA, who provided abortions when he was a practicing physician in
Philadelphia, told me, "This could have been any of us who provide or
provided abortion services. I'm just as annoyed by some of my own
colleagues and the American Medical Association who marginalized us
and even looked down at anyone involved in providing abortion."
The silence overall from leaders so far has been deafening, as
attorney and longtime Arizona volunteer for reproductive rights causes
Leon Silver pointed out. And if our leaders remain silent, I can tell
you with perfect assurance what will happen next. There will be more
violence.
Dr. Tiller's friends, family, patients, colleagues and the many
pro-choice activists who have supported him over the years need the
vigil in Wichita and those springing up elsewhere to mourn the
67-year-old doctor's death and celebrate his exceptional life. The
larger community of reproductive health professionals and activists,
including those who bravely escort women safely into and out of health
facilities for abortions, need to cry and hug and lift one another up
on the wings of their convictions that they are doing God's work,
saving women's lives in the fullest sense of the word. I am with them
in spirit.
But when it comes to changing a culture that has marginalized abortion
by shaming women and hounding, even murdering, the doctors and clinic
staff who provide safe abortions, when it comes to changing a culture
bent on shaming women who are, in all good conscience, making the most
moral of personal decisions -- candlelight vigils alone will never be
enough.
About the writer
Gloria Feldt is the author of "The War on Choice: the Right Wing
Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back," and former president
of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She blogs on politics,
leadership, and women at her website, GloriaFeldt.com, and is
currently at work on a book about women's relationship with power.
Related Stories
Dr. George Tiller murdered in Wichita Terrorized by anti-abortion
fanatics for almost 20 years, the doctor was killed in the lobby of
his church May 31, 2009 The abortion doctor Susan Wicklund has
received death threats and worn a bulletproof vest to work. But what
really scares her, she writes in "This Common Sec
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Requiem for the Last American Soldier to Die in Iraq
By BRIAN TURNER
At some point in the future, soldiers will pack up their rucks, equipment will be loaded into huge shipping containers, C-130s will rise wheels-up off the tarmac, and Navy transport ships will cross the high seas to return home once again. At some point - the timing of which I don't have the slightest guess at - the war in Iraq will end. And I've been thinking about this a lot lately - I've been thinking about the last American soldier to die in Iraq.
Tonight, at 3 a.m., a hunter's moon shines down into the misty ravines of Vermont's Green Mountains. I'm standing out on the back deck of a friend's house, listening to the quiet of the woods. At the Fairbanks Museum in nearby St. Johnsbury, the lights have been turned off for hours and all is dark inside the glass display cases, filled with Civil War memorabilia. The checkerboard of Jefferson Davis. Smoothbore rifles. Canteens. Reading glasses. Letters written home.
Four or five miles outside of town, past a long stretch of water where the moon is crossing over, a blue and white house sits in a small clearing not far from where I stand now. Chimney smoke rises from a fire burned down to embers. A couple spoon each other in sleep, exhausted from lovemaking. One of them is beginning to snore. I want them to wake up and make love again, even if they need the sleep and tomorrow's workday holds more work than they might imagine.
Who can say where that last soldier is now, at this very moment? Kettlemen City. Turlock. Wichita. Fredricksburg. Omaha. Duluth. She may be in the truck idling beside us in traffic as we wait for the light to turn green. He may be ordering a slice of key lime pie at Denny's, sitting at a booth with his friends after bowling all night. What name waits to be etched on a stone not yet erected in America? Somewhere out in the vast stretches of our country, somewhere out in Whitman's America, out among the wide expanse of grasses, somewhere here among us the last soldier may lie dreaming in bed before the dawn as the sun sets over Iraq.
***
At the Spar in Tacoma, Wash., the bartender - Jolene - is about to flip the lights for last call. Let her wait a moment longer. If she can wait a few minutes more, the young woman at the end of the bar will finally do what she's been wanting to do for hours. And it will surprise the young man she's been talking with - she'll kiss him. It will never be seen on a movie screen or written down in a book for people to enjoy centuries later. No one at the bar will even notice it taking place. But they should, because it's one of the all-time best kisses ever. As cheesy and hyper-romantic as it sounds, this is a kiss for the ages, and it's as good as they get.
***
Let the quiet moments of a life be recognized and not glossed over with thoughts of the past or thoughts of the future. For a rare, brief moment - let this moment be savored and fully lived. Maybe that soldier will drive a thresher in the Kansas sun today. Maybe she'll cheer at a Red Sox game as her husband laments the fate of his Yankees. Maybe he's in Hollister, Calif., thinking of the 100 things he'd written as a child - the list he titled "Things To Do Before I Die":
1. write a book
2. travel down the amazon
3. travel down the nile
4. visit each continent
5. live in a foreign country
6. learn to speak foreign languages
7. be a major-league baseball player
8. publish in Playboy magazine
9. ride a motorcycle across America
10. cross an ocean by boat
11. scuba dive
12. climb a mountain
13. go to every major league baseball park, especially Yankee Stadium
14. be a tourist on a moon mission with NASA or another space agency
15. ride on an elephant and a camel
16. visit Angor Wat, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall, the Hermitage, the Louvre, Stonehenge
17. invent something useful and helpful for people
18. …and on and on…
How many items will he have crossed off that list before he must put it away again?
***
Could that last soldier be in front of a video camera in Hollister right now,recording a final message in case she doesn't make it back, making a videotape for a child who will never know its own mother?
If you're watching this then it means I'm not around anymore. I imagine you're probably in your late teens now. Maybe Mt. Kilimanjaro no longer has snow on its peak. Maybe the ice shelves on the northern coasts of Alaska have melted back and polar bears are dwindling in number. I always wanted to get up there and see Alaska. Maybe you'll make it up there one day yourself. I wonder if it's somehow possible for you to buy a plane ticket to Baghdad, to visit Iraq as a tourist. Will you visit the places where I've been? Will you talk to the people there? Will you tell them my name?
***
What will the name be? Anthony. Lynette. Fernando. Paula. Joshua. Letitia. Roger… Who will carve it in stone and who will leave flowers there as the years pass by? Who will remember this soldier and what will those memories be? Does he have brothers and sisters? Will his father sink into the grass in the backyard when he is told the news? Will his mother stare into the street with eyes gone hollow and vacant, the cars passing each day with their polished enamel reflecting the sunlight? What will the officer say when he knocks on that door?
***
The next time I'm waiting for a transfer flight in Dallas, or in Denver, or in Chicago, I'm going to make a point to watch for soldiers in uniform. If one of them is eating alone and watching football on a wall-mounted television, I'll anonymously pick up the check for them, like someone did for me once when I was in my desert fatigues and preparing to deploy overseas.
***
Maybe, just maybe, as I stand here in the quiet moonlight of Vermont, the American who will one day be the very last American soldier to die in Iraq - maybe that soldier is doing a night jump in Ft. Bragg, N.C. Each parachute opens its canopy over the darkness below - the wind an exhilaration, a cold rush of adrenaline, the jump an exercise in being fully alive and in the moment, a way of learning how it feels to fall within the rain, the way rain itself falls, to be a part of it all, the earth's gravity pulling with its inexorable embrace.
web: www.spiritualprogressives.org
email: info@spiritualprogressives.org
Copyright © 2009 Network of Spiritual Progressives®.
2342 Shattuck Avenue, #1200
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-644-1200 Fax 510-644-1255
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Saturday, October 27, 2007
My Blog List
-
-
-
-
-
-
The Program Terminator2 hours ago
-
-
Hello world!8 years ago
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
First One Minute for Peace PSA15 years ago
-
-
-
-