On August 23,1952, A.J. Muste, in his closing address to the Pacific Northwest FOR – AFSC Family Camp meeting, said “The enemy is yourself.  Your other self. Your aggressiveness arouses your enemy’s defensiveness.  Your defensiveness arouses his aggressiveness.   If you arm yourself, you arm your enemy.”  Recently I was at Home Depot buying some gardening supplies.  When I went out to the parking lot, I noticed a man whose very large red pickup which was parked in front of mine looking at the bumper stickers I have and shaking his head.  When I approached he said, “You probably didn’t serve , did you?”  When I told him I had been in the Infantry in Viet Nam, he questioned me closely…

First we were all Tunisians. Then a poster read “Walk like an Egyptian.” Suddenly, we’re all from Wisconsin. Inspirational, remarkable change being wrought by working people, raising their voices and becoming actors in their own lives and in history. In Egypt we saw the linkage of new modes of communication (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) with the mobilization of millions of people to effect change. Did you know that among the community of young Egyptian bloggers, one of them had been promoting nonviolent civil disobedience by distributing a translated comic book about Martin Luther King that was developed by FOR in the late 1950s? In Wisconsin, tens of thousands of teachers, students, workers, and others are demanding that Gov. Scott Walker…

The International Peace Bureau (Geneva, Switzerland) and the Institute for Policy Studies (Washington DC) are jointly organizing a Global Day of Action on Military Spending on Tuesday April 12, 2011, to coincide with the release of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s new figures on military expenditures.  Since this call happens to fall just before tax day in the U.S. [Monday April 18 rather than Friday the 15th because of a holiday in Washington DC, according to several sources], you may want to tie your event to international organizing. Check out the GDAMS website at http:/demilitarize.org a downloadable organizing packet and lots of organizing resources and ideas.  With annual global military spending over $1.5 trillion (2009 figures), the group is asking people…

A number of years ago I became aware of the effects of the economic sanctions we were imposing on the people of Iraq. Among other intended and unintended consequences of our imposition of power, I found out that, according to the U.N., 5,000 children under the age of five were dying each month.   I was moved to go to Iraq in August 2000 to see for myself. I was heart-broken at what I witnessed. The casualness of this evil seemed unimaginable. Kathy Kelly, who I met in Iraq, recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan. She pointed me to a U.N. report on the current status of the children of Afghanistan. Since we “liberated” Afghanistan from the Taliban, children…

Bert just called me and said it’s over the good guys finally won here and there too all the networks are breaking in with special reports calling this a totally unexpected turn of events against all odds you know reports are coming in from all over telling us what we always knew could be I wasn’t always a believer in possibilities you know I can say that I was a hoper now it seems that everyone everywhere was always for peace more than you probably would count from your memory I still am a hoper I guess but just in case call me again next month