Dick Bernard Venturing

A million ordinary women, men and children in a million places at a million times have made a million differences in their communities and in their world.

www.amillioncopies.info celebrates the accomplishments of the past, and is meant to encourage personal action in the present and the future, using the accomplishments of Mr. Elling and Dr. Schwartzberg as excellent examples of what committed people can do. Mr. Elling would be delighted to see his 1971 accomplishment repeated, and includes a potential draft resolution for anyone interested in carrying his efforts forward today. Dr. Schwartzberg would like to see his Affirmation of Human Oneness used, and translated into even more world languages.

The work of Mr. Elling and Dr. Schwartzberg are only two of numberless examples, everywhere: examples to be celebrated, and replicated. Numberless and anonymous women, men and children are doing extraordinary things every day. They, too, deserve the spotlight of positive attention in your community.

www.amillioncopies.info is meant as a portal, rather than simply a destination...the links included on the home page are organizations which provide opportunities for learning and for engagement in helping build a better world. They are not the only organizations seeking a better world, but they are excellent examples.

www.amillioncopies.info is meant most of all as a bridge between the inspiration and caring and wisdom of elders in societies everywhere, conveyed to young people who will inherit this planet as we have left it.

Our planet is our home; everyone on our planet is our neighbor.

Let's work together for a better future for us all.

How can you help?

If you like http://www.amillioncopies.info, consider letting others know about it.

I don't know why Ed McCurdy chose the line "a million copies made" for his circa 1950 peace anthem, "Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream".

Nor do I know why John Denver especially liked the song (a 1971 rendition performed by him on the U.S. Capitol steps is 'front and center' on our Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP ) home page.)

All I know is that I heard Lynn Elling lead us in singing the song back in the spring of 2007; and that the lyric "A million copies made" has stuck with me.

Who is this Lynn Elling? And what does he have to do with peace and justice?

Plenty.

As a young LST (Landing Ship Tank) officer in WWII, Lynn Elling saw the horrors of War closeup in the South Pacific.

After the war he entered the insurance and financial planning business, becoming very successful in the profession.

Assorted experiences, not the least of which were WWII, and opportunities to meet with people like Thor Heyerdahl (Kon Tiki) and others, led to Lynn's life long passion to build a culture of Peace and World Citizenship. His enduring monument is World Citizen, Inc. (www.peacesites.org). World Citizen is a member of MAP.

Lynn's passion for peace culminated in a remarkable achievement in the spring of 1971 when 26 prominent leaders, Minnesota Republicans and Democrats, and including then-UN Secretary General U Thant, signed a declaration of World Citizenship whose major proviso recognized
"the sovereign right of our citizens to declare that their citizenship responsibilities extend beyond our state and nation. We hereby join with other concerned people of the world in a declaration that we share in this world responsibility and that our citizens are in this sense citizens of the world. We pledge our efforts as world citizens to the establishment of permanent peace based on just world law and to the use of world resources in the service of man and not for his destruction."
(click on http://www.mapm.org/amillion.htm for a photo of the entire declaration, which includes the signatures of all its very prominent signers , as well as Lynn's current proposal, and photos of Lynn from the time of WWII and Korea.)

Thirty-six years have passed since the remarkable declaration of 1971 was signed during a time of war and division in the United States.

Lynn Elling's passion for a world at peace has never ebbed, and he is asking us now to revisit what happened then, and bring it into the present day.

In 1971, the Vietnam War was raging on with no end in sight. For those old enough to remember, it was a time of deep division in this country. American boys and girls were dying by the thousands in southeast Asia, as were millions of fellow world citizens in southeast Asian countries.

Fast forward to 2007.

As so often happens, after a flurry of attention the remarkable 1971 declaration was relegated to archives, its immense signficance unnoticed by later generations.

Lynn Elling never forgot the 1971 declaration and in the spring of this year put it back on the table with a proposed update to fit the present day. Lynn is grateful to Dr. Joseph Schwartzberg, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, who prepared the current proposal.

Today, of course, we are confronted by circumstances even more compelling and troubling than visited the U.S. and the world in 1971.

In 1971 there was a certain bi-partisan civility and mutual respect; now our politicians have largely embraced the "us versus them" philosophy, almost literally in public combat against each other, and past political civility and mutual respect are distant and vague and even naive memories. Winning and losing have to too great an extent seized the present day.

In 1971, the Vietnam War had already raged on as a real war for about as long as the current so-called "War on Terror". But, then, the military draft and the very real possibility of dying over there, was for young people a looming and ever-present possibility.

Today war is almost an abstract reality for many of us, something that seems to have no apparent negative consequences for us, mostly affecting people we'll never see, with fewer of 'our own' dying in places far away, no military draft facing young people, our war financed on a national credit card for our grandchildren to pay.

We can imagine that today's war has no direct consequences for us, even while we are bankrupting ourselves morally and financially, and isolating ourselves politically.

Lynn Elling, founder of World Citizen, Inc, deserves immense credit and admiration for not only his accomplishment 'back then', but for putting the issue back on the table today.

When Lynn secured his last signature on the 1971 declaration, achieving mastery in the space race was still a priority. Today, our very survival as human beings is rooted on what is happening on our own planet in all ways: human relationships, resource depletion, increasing inequities between peoples, climate change...the list goes on and on. Getting to the moon was, then, still a priority. Today's priority must be right here on the sphere we call home - the earth. We are part of the global community; isolation and domination are no longer options.

I leave the MAP presidency in two months, at the end of December, 2007.

I have committed to Lynn that I will do whatever I can to carry his noble initiative forward into the future. I might say also that the example of my good friend former Minnesota Governor Elmer L. Andersen also motivates me. Gov. Andersen, who passed on in 1994, and who Lynn Elling considered a mentor, would be pleased to see this initiative going forward.

Thanks, Lynn, for all you've done.

You ask "Where do we go from here with the new proposed declaration?" That remains to be determined. Your ideas are solicited: dick_bernard@msn.com.

To all of you, stay tuned as we "retool and refuel" Lynn's dream and take it, as he likes to say, "to the stratosphere".

Our friend, Annelee Woodstrom, is 81 today, September 20, 2007.

Coincident with her 81st birthday, her second book, Empty Chairs, is ready to roll off the presses. Empty Chairs is her second book, and chronicles in a gripping and engaging way 60 years of life in the U.S., including over 50 years of marriage to her Gentleman Soldier, Kenneth Woodstrom, the man she met in her home town of Mitterteich, Germany, at the end of World War II. In 1947 they married, and Annelee became a 'war bride'. (Kenny passed away in 1998).

In 2003, Annelee published her first book, the award-winning War Child: Growing Up in Adolf Hitler’s Germany, a memoir of her first 20 years of life in peace-time and then war-changed and war-torn and ultimately destroyed Germany. Annelee lived the illusion of prosperity and even peace in the 1930s, and then the awful reality of War as it devastated her native land.

War Child sold out its first printing, and has been reprinted as a companion book for Empty Chairs.

Both books are well worth their purchase price and much more information is available at http://www.anneleewoodstrom.com. They will be of special interest to, and great gifts for, ordinary people of the World War II and “baby boomer” generations, since they recount in a very vivid way how life was both in Germany and U.S. (I learned of the first book through a newspaper article in the Fargo (ND) Forum in 2003, and had the great privilege of working closely with Annelee as she wrote the second book this past year.)

Anneliese Solch was a good German Catholic girl from a hard-working and respected family in rural Bavaria. She lived a long walk from today’s Czech Republic; just inside what would later become West Germany. Her school years coincided with Hitler’s coming to power, and she wanted to be part of Hitler Youth programs, since they offered much fun. Her parents refused to allow her to become part of the Hitler Youth, and were not themselves part of the Nazi party, and thus lost out on assorted privileges which could likely have accrued to them through party membership.

Her father, then in his late 30s, was drafted into the German Army in 1943, and after the war was never heard from again. They believe he died in Russia.

Kenneth Woodstrom was an auto mechanic, a devout Lutheran from Crookston MN, when drafted into the Army in 1942. His service record (detailed at the website) concluded with 11 consecutive and often horrific months of combat beginning with D-Day, 1944, thence through France and Germany and into Czechoslovakia. He sustained permanent disabilities from his service in WWII. Only 5 of the men with whom he was inducted returned from the War; his Regiment was decimated in combat.

As love always is, there was some spark between Anneliese, the girl on the bicycle, and Kenny, the guy in the Jeep, when their eyes first met on a spring day in 1945 in Mitterteich. They fell in love. Soon he went back to the States with his unit. They married in suburban Washington DC in April, 1947, two years after they had last seen each other.

Their married years, as recounted in Empty Chairs, will remind all of us ‘of a certain age’ of many of our own experiences. Empty Chairs is a powerfully moving story of Family, and all that deceptively simple word entails.

For Anneliese, the German Catholic girl, and Kenny, the American Lutheran boy, and for their family and friends and neighbors, War united and damaged and tore apart in so many ways.

The books are and will be perfect companions for the monumental Ken Burns “War” special remembering WWII beginning on PBS Sunday evening, September 23.

Watch the series, check out the books at http://www.anneleewoodstrom.com , and consider their purchase for yourself, and as gifts.

Annelee will again be doing speaking engagements. Her contact information is at her website http://www.anneleewoodstrom.com.

NOTE the MAPs Calendar, at this website, September 20. There are details on the showing of a documentary film, Peace One Day, relating to the history of the International Day of Peace , a day of global ceasefire and nonviolence.
* * * * *
September 21 is the United Nations International Day of Peace, and it has been so since 2002. It has become a major event worldwide.
You've never heard of it?
How did it come to be?
For years there had been a UN International Day of Peace - enacted by a UN resolution in 1981.
But Peace Day had always been a 'floating' day, coming in conjunction with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. It was always in September, but on differing dates.
In 2001, in the cruelest of ironies, the International Day of Peace was being observed at the United Nations Plaza on the morning of September 11, at the exact time that the catastrophe at the nearby World Trade Center was unfolding. That Peace Day celebration was cut short by the disaster that was happening in plain sight not far away.
Just a few days before September 11, the UN General Assembly had passed a Resolution setting September 21 as the permanent date of International Peace Day, and also upgrading it to be recognized as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence.
Two years before 2001, in 1999, a young English actor, Jeremy Gilley, became interested in the International Day of Peace, and set about to have the day fixed at September 21 so that it would be a consistent day each year. By so doing, people could plan for the event year-to-year, rather than haphazardly.
But how does one person , an outsider at that, make a difference within a vast and incredibly diverse organization such as the United Nations?
It's not easy, but Mr. Gilley took on the task and in the end patience and persistence and plenty of diplomacy paid off, with September 21 being adopted as the permanent UN International Day of Peace effective in 2002. The inaugural celebration was in Jeremy's London, England, in 2002. In Minneapolis it was first pulled together as a successful event in 2003 by Madeline Simon and a group from First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis, in cooperation with three other nearby churches : Basilica of St. Mary, Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, and Cathedral Church of St. Mark.
Often the heroes of big changes , such as Jeremy Gilley, achieve their vision, then they become invisible...people know what the event or outcome was, but they seldom remember who 'birthed' the event in the first place.
So, here, I recognize a Man of Peace, still a young Englishman, Jeremy Gilley.
To learn more of the UN International Day of Peace, and Jeremy Gilley and his work, go to www.peaceoneday.org.
For information about the UN Resolution itself, go to www.un.org, enter the site, go to the lower right hand corner, click on 'search', and in the search box enter a/res/55/282, which is the UN International Day of Peace, global ceasefire and nonviolence resolution. This document is in many languages. The English version is found several entries down. It is a single printable page. Pick the one with factsheets in the address, not the pdf.
The very interesting 80 minute documentary of Jeremy Gilley's successful quest will be shown at 6:30 p.m. Thursday evening, September 20 at Basilica of St. Mary School, classroom LL 1. The school is behind the Basilica, near 17th and Hennepin in Minneapolis. Details can be found on the Mn Alliance of Peacemakers calendar at this web address. Do plan to attend.
Thanks Jeremy, Madeline, and the tens of thousands of people worldwide who have made the UN International Day of Peace an ongoing, and ever more noticeable event.
Only with Peace, is there a future for humankind.

Shortly after Easter, April 16, 1963, 34-year old Martin Luther King Jr posted his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail. The text of the letter is easily accessible on the web, and is an entire chapter of Martin Luther King's book published in early 1964, "Why We Can't Wait", which described the critical year of 1963 in the Civil Rights movement, as well as giving a sketch of the reasons for the frustration of Negroes on that, the Centennial Year of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Why We Can't Wait is a textbook of the not always tidy realities of organizing, then and now, and it is very well worth acquiring and reading. It is easily and inexpensively available as a used book from on-line book stores such as bookfinder.com and amazon.com. Its observations and lessons learned apply to today as much as to that now-long ago time of 1963.

(Neither the book, nor the web, provides an easily accessible copy of the other statement which led to King's famous letter. That text, at the end of this column, was the published statement of eight prominent Alabama clergymen against the organizing effort. I will not take editorial license with what they said, nor will I interpret King's words from his cell in Birmingham. The reader can read and interpret the respective statements for him or herself. What seems clear is that King wrote his letter to acknowledged ministerial leaders, probably all or primarily white, who would likely have been considered as moderates in that time and place; and through them, in effect, sent his message to the world.)

There are many lessons for today's Peace and Justice activists in Letter from the Birmingham Jail, and Why We Can't Wait. The overall lesson is that it isn't easy to go against the prevailing grain. Even those whose cause you advocate are not always with you. One of King's most pivotal decisions was made on his own, going against his own leadership teams advice and counsel. It turned out to have been a risk worth taking; it could have had the opposite effect. A leader never knows for sure....

Of all of the lessons, the one that seems most pertinent for today's activists is this quote from the chapter of Why We Can't Wait entitled "The Days to Come". King: "It was the people who moved their leaders, not the leaders who moved the people. Of course, there were generals, as there must be in every army. But the command post was in the bursting hearts of millions of Negroes. When such a people begin to move, they create their own theories, shape their own destinies, and choose the leaders who share their own philosophy. A leader who understands this kind of mandate knows that he must be sensitive to the anger, the impatience, the frustration, the resolution that have been loosed in his people. Any leader who tries to bottle up these emotions is sure to be blown asunder in the ensuing explosion."

Of course, there are major distinctions between King's environment then, and today's environment, but the principles remain the same: it will be the people who move the leaders, not vice versa. King, by then a leader in the movement for less than ten frustrating years, had already learned that regardless of how righteous or good the cause, ultimately the people had to take ownership of it. Without them, his cause was lost. Elsewhere, he speaks of major political leaders of the time he knew - Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson - who dealt with the same key fact: regardless of their personal opinions and beliefs, there was a huge gap and a lot of work between what they might want and what they could achieve.

Recently I had the very good fortune to be given a 1996 book "Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership" by Joseph Jaworski, and it seems to provide a fitting end to this short essay. Barely into this book, in fact in the introduction by Peter Senge, one fineds this quote pairing the philosophies of Robert K. Greenleaf (author of "Servant Leadership") and Joseph Jaworski: "[Jaworski] suggests that the fundamental choice that enables true leadership in all situations (including, but not limited to, hierarchical leadership) is the choice to serve life. He suggests that in a deep sense, my capacity as a leader comes from my choice to allow life to unfold through me. This choice results in a type of leadership that we've known very rarely, or that we associate exclusively with extraordinary individuals like Gandhi or King. In fact, this domain of leadership is available to us all, and may indeed be crucial for our future."

We can all be MLK or Gandhi, Senge suggests, reflecting both Greenleaf and Jaworski. All we need to do is believe that we have that capability, and let that leadership happen.

The task of today's Peace and Justice community is, in my opinion, more than anything else to facilitate empowerment of the majority of the people who are deeply concerned about the direction of this country in all areas that impact their children and grandchildren's future. These people, the people we serve, are our biggest asset, our slumbering giant.

"Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."
(From a popular hymn, words and music by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller 1955)

* * * * *

The April 1963 Letter of Eight leaders of religious denominations which led to King's Letter from Birmingham Jail:

"We, the undersigned clergymen are among those who, in January, issued "An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense," in dealing with racial problems in Alabama. We expressed understanding that honest convictions in racial matters could properly be pursued in the courts, but urged that decisions of those courts should in the meantime be peacefully obeyed.

Since that time there had been some evidence of increased forbearance and a willingness to fact facts. Responsible citizens have undertaken to work on various problems which cause racial frictions and uncrest. In Birmingham, recent public events have given indication that we will have opportunity for a new constructive and realistic approach to racial matters.

However we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.

We agree rather with certain local Negro leadership which has called for honest and open negotiations of racial issues in our area. And we believe this kind of facing of issues can best be accomplished by citizens of our own metropolitan area, white and Negro, meeting with their knowledge and experience of the local situation. All of us need to face that responsibility and find proper channels for its accomplishment.

Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions", we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions might be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham.

We commend the community as a whole, and the local news media and law enforcement officials in particular, on the calm manner in which the demonstrations have been handled. We urge the public to continue to show restraint should the demonstrations continue, and the law enforcement officials to remain calm and continue to protect our city from violence.

We further strongly urge our own Negro Community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cauise should be pressed in the courts and in negtotations among local leaders and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.

(s)

CCJ Carpenter DD LLD Bishop of Alabama
Joseph Durick DD Auxiliary Bishop of Diocese of Mobile-Birmingham
Rabbi Milton L Grafman, Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham
Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop of Alamaba-West Florida Conference of Methodist Church
Bishop Nolan B. Harmon, Bishop of North Alabama Conf of Methodist Church
George Murray DD LLD, Bishop Coadjutor, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama
Edward V. Ramage, Moderator, Synod of Alabama Presbyterian Church in the U.S.
Earl Stallings, Pastor, First Baptist Church of Birmingham

"War is Peace"
1984 by George Orwell (published 1949)

"Making War to Keep Peace"
Amb. Jeanne Kirkpatrick last book (published 2006)

The Atomic Bomb is >"a revolutionary weapon destined to change war as we know it, or which may even be the instrumentality to end all wars."
News release of the War Department on the advent of the Atomic Bomb, August, 1945

Recently I sent a letter to seven of my closest relatives, pointing out the ultimate insanity of War: that the ultimate outcome of War seems only to be another and ever more deadly War.

One of the seven responded in what I felt was a very reasoned way, including as part of his response this statement: "As long as you are searching for evidence of an enduring peace that results from armed conflict, try to find any case of an enduring peace that results from negotiations. Let's just say for the sake of argument that "enduring peace" means 100 years."

That response is really an effective one in that it answers a question by asking another question. And, indeed, it is a difficult question to answer, especially if you happen to be part of what has come to be known as the "Western World" where for all of recorded history there has been catastrophic war on top of catastrophic war, with only short intervals of peace until the next, and even more awful, conflict begins.

It is easy to lose hope and to embrace a truly dismal reality that War is all there is, and that the only solution is to become ever more diabolical in your means of waging War.

I have not lost hope, but I need first to explore this hopeless narrative a little further.

The three quotes at the beginning of this column say a great deal in relationship to reality and in relationship to our present and our future. The Orwell quote is central to his dismal view of the future of humankind in his novel 1984. "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery", "Ignorance is Strength" were the slogans of his dominant Party. He is oft quoted today.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick's recent book title in itself mirrors Orwell: "Making War to Keep Peace". I have not yet read this book, and may not, but the reviews of Amb. Kirkpatrick's notion of realpolitik are interesting to read, and easily accessible to any interested person at places like www.Amazon.com.

Then there is the War Department news release about the Atomic Bomb. I found this quote in a clipped out article from an early August, 1945, issue of the Grand Forks (ND) Herald. It had been included in a letter written August 9, 1945, by my Aunt, to her husband, then a Naval Officer serving on a Destroyer in the Pacific. You can find no statement more naive, especially in the present day world when we, by far the most well armed nuclear nation in all of history are living in fear of being attacked by some terrorist carrying the very bomb that we created "to end all wars".

Peace has never really had its chance in our contemporary world, in my opinion.

War has had innumerable chances, each time leading to temporary success (at least for the "winner") until the next war. Our Football Super Bowl culture is modeled on, and indeed a good example of, the futility of a Culture of Winners and Losers, and Competition as the final decider of who will reign supreme.

Next February there will be another Super Bowl. And somebody will win, and the fans (and the successful bettors) will be pleased. But fame is fleeting, and February 2009 odds are against the 2008 Super Bowl champ repeating...this time they'll be a loser.

Peace may be elusive, and the "poor cousin" to War in the search for dominance in the world, but it is the only enduring solution, the only chance the human race has for survival. War is an abject and utter failure and as we're learning no longer 'conventional' (i.e. one we can control). The slippery slope to catastrophe is ever steeper, ever faster, unless we collectively take stock.

I don't plan to research my relatives question in response to a question: it's a waste of time. Peace has never been given a chance.

I do know the difference between War and Peace, and I plan to work for Peace so long as I have a breath to breathe, and I hope you do the same. As the anthem goes "A thousand stones can build an arch, singly none." we'll build Peace one action at a time.

Peace. Peace. Peace.

April 1, 2007

Paul Loeb came with a dose of inspiration on March 19, and the over 100 of us who came likely left with a bit more hope that despite sometimes depressing thoughts, and unmet expectations, about the fruits of our labors, we are making a difference.

As he talked, I kept thinking of Faith Kidder. More on that in a moment.

Loeb, nationally known speaker and author (Soul of a Citizen: The Impossible Will Take a Little While) told stories of people who made a big difference without even intending to.

Take Rosa Parks...and Martin Luther King, for instance. Everyone knows their role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights movement. Loeb did not focus on them, however. Why did Rosa Parks finally take action, and who got Rosa Parks involved, he asked? At the time she refused to give up her seat, she was apparently secretary of the local NAACP, and it was apparently her husband who had gotten her interested in involvement with the NAACP. And who got Rosa Parks husband involved, Paul asked? At this point, that's a key, but unanswered, and probably unanswerable question.

As for MLK: just by chance he happened to be a new pastor in town at the time the bus boycott began, and was pressed into leadership, probably against his better judgement at the time. He didn't rush into leadership; he was called to leadership. (King's feeling at the time, in his own words, is quoted in my posting in this space for January 29, 2007, Cindy Sheehan and Season for Nonviolence).

Loeb mentioned a number of other examples: some people of prominence, others we've never heard of, who against all odds made a difference.

And I kept thinking of Faith Kidder.

Without Faith's vision and persistence, we would not have had the opportunity to hear Paul Loeb on March 19. She had seen an essay of his that she really liked, and found his website
http://www.paulloeb.org , and while browsing the site noticed that Loeb had a small opening in his schedule between two midwest engagements. Faith, being Faith, decided to go for it, and lobbied a skeptical Paul Loeb until he was convinced that she, working strictly as an individual, could actually pull together an event worth his time and effort. From his telling, it was several weeks before he decided to take the risk and commit to a program sponsored by an individual he didn't know, who couldn't guarantee much of anything. His reluctance made a lot of sense. Faith didn't quit. I think Paul was glad he came to Minneapolis for the unplanned engagement.

I hardly know Faith, but I know her well enough from other events she's organized to know that when she sets out to do something, she quietly and persistently and effectively gets it done.

So...Paul Loeb spoke to over 100 of us on March 19. He's the one in the photo. But the one who really deserves the credit is the person out of sight in the background, who invested most of the effort, and stayed out of the spotlight, Faith Kidder.

The heroes in this movement, Faith and many others, are and will almost without question be the unsung ones...mostly invisible in the background doing what needs to be done. They may never truly realize the difference that they're making, or made, but they certainly do make all the difference, and they're all around us.

Thanks, Faith, for making what seemed impossible, possible, giving we casual bystanders an inspirational evening March 19.

Dick Bernard
March 11, 2007

Not to be missed:
Sunday March 18 1 pm Uptown Minneapolis (Hennepin and Lagoon): Anti-War Protest
Monday March 19 7 pm St. Joan of Arc 4537 3rd Ave S Minneapols: Paul Loeb speaking on "How to Stay Inspired for the Long Haul".

The two above events are, in my view, perfect "twins" for a new beginning, a new spring. It would be nice if neither were necessary; it is a reality that both are necessary. One continues a sad witness to the disaster that discerning people knew would be result of the Iraq War, and the Terrorism it spawned, not diminished; the other is an opportunity to recharge the batteries, as Paul Loeb's book titles suggest: "The Impossible Will Take a Little While", and "Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time".

Being Witness is not an easy task, but it is essential. A friend spotted this 1968 quote of Hubert Humphrey recently, and it says it all about those of us who quietly labor for peace and justice in this world of ours: "What you do, what each of us does, has an effect on the country, the state, the nation, and the world." This quote mirrors the comments of Reps. Keith Ellison and Tim Walz and Sen. Amy Klobuchar at at the Town Hall Forum on Darfur March 11. Walz noted the need for the public to "keep the pressure on"; Ellison, said "Politicians see the light when they feel the heat". Klobuchar recited the timeless truth recited in every speech given by Lutheran minister and German dissident Martin Niemoeller after his release from long imprisonment in Germany after the Nazis were defeated in WWII. "When they came for the Socialists, I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist...Then...Then...Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me." (As I recall, Niemoeller was early viewed as a troublemaker by the Reich; he was too prominent a cleric to be killed; and too outspoken to be 'loose on the streets', so by the end of the 1930s he was imprisoned and thus, they felt, rendered harmless.)

Being Witness is not an easy task, but it is essential.

Continue reading "Spring: A New Beginning" »

You may have to look a little carefully to see it (note photo), but there it is, on the picture window of a modest home in northeast Minneapolis MN: a Peace Symbol, silently witnessing to its neighborhood and all passersby.

Linda, who works at a neighborhood coffee house I frequent with a couple of friends every other Tuesday, told us about the symbol and its history in early January. It is her home, and her personal witness to Peace. It has attracted both kinds of attention: people who affirm its presence...and at least one unknown soul who felt it his (or her) duty to 'egg' it in the middle of winter (you can see the evidence just above and to the right of the peace symbol).

It is our tendency, perhaps our wish, to see dramatic breatkthroughs: an instant end to War; a rapid turning of our leadership from War-worshipping policies to sanity.

It would be nice, of course, to see instant turnarounds, but the dramatic work is really one 'peace' at a time, like the symbol in the window; like the bumper sticker '24PEACE' I saw on a vehicle at Lake Tahoe last October; like the giant PEACE sign outside the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis; the metallic PEACE symbol on the trunk of the car in front of me recently; like, like, like.... Every one of us must bear witness if we are to have any chance of turning the destructive Titanic of War and its related war economy away from the Iceberg which is ever more obviously signalling our collective death.

Continue reading "PEACEs" »

“I now believe that the potential destructiveness of modern weapons totally rules out the possibility of war ever again achieving a negative good. If we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. In our day of space vehicles and guided ballistic missiles, the choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”

Martin Luther King Jr, in Strength to Love, 1963

Coincidence brought the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers to invite Cindy Sheehan to address Minnesota-area peace advocates on January 30, and then, two months later, to learn about and strongly endorse the 10th annual international Season for Nonviolence. The Season begins on January 30, the anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi (1948), and ends on April 4, the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr (1968).

The two ideas came from separate individuals, at separate times.

I can think of no better coincidence than Cindy speaking here on the very day the Season for Nonviolence begins. In the ultimate (and tragic) irony, Cindy’s son, Casey, was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004, which is the last day of the Season, and the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jrs death in Memphis..

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