Category: Peace and War

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Peace and War, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain
Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain
Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain

Once again, yesterday, I came across the tired old canard that the only way to fight bad things and bad people is to put weapons in the hands of good people. We hear it after every mass shooting.

And not only is it not true, it’s a very destructive thought pattern. Too often, when good people get guns, they turn into not-so-good people. Lord Acton’s famous dictum, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely” seems to hold very true. Dictators were often first hailed as liberators; as one of hundreds of examples, think about Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

Gandhian techniques were actually very effective against the Nazis. The scholar Gene Sharp documented this extensively in The Politics of Nonviolent Action trilogy. And frankly, the Brits in India were no saints. They were brutal and violent, though lacking the organized killing machine (gas chambers, etc.) the Nazis built. You may be familiar with the King of Denmark very publicly wearing the yellow star. That’s just one example of hundreds. Many of these incidents had better outcomes than a lot of gun-based responses.  And even when they didn’t, the reprisals were directed against those who acted, and not—as so often happened when partisans killed Nazis—the entire community.

The segregated American South was also quite brutal and violent, as shown very effectively in the recent movie, “Selma.” Martin Luther King considered Gandhi a mentor. Gandhi in turn learned from (and actually corresponded with) Tolstoy. Mandela, I’m sure, studied both Gandhi and King, and in turn influenced the Arab Spring.

None of this happens in a vacuum. We can trace nonviolent resistance in a reasonably straight line at least back to Christ, and of course there are several incidents of Gandhian tactics in the Old Testament. My personal favorite is the refusal of the midwives Shifra and Pu’ah to carry out the Pharaoh’s command to kill all the Hebrew boy babies, though Abraham’s argument with God over the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is a close second.

Tweet: Could nonviolence stop Nazis? https://ctt.ec/f753a+

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Peace and War, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Today, I encountered a post from an Internet friend who lives in Israel, urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netenyahu to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.

The post made me feel queasy. My original response was a desire to scream and yell that this was racist. Fortunately, I had enough self-control not to give into that stupid and unproductive urge. I also didn’t want to start a firestorm of negative attacks on me because I had the temerity to disagree with a view that I felt was both racist and extremist. And yet I wanted to confront this way of thinking and not let it go unchallenged.

So instead, I thought for a couple of minutes about what type of response would actually be heard and not blocked out—what could actually advance a dialog. (I will confess that I haven’t always been skilled in that type of response, but I think I’ve gotten much better in the past several years.

And this is what I finally wrote—knowing that my friend is deeply religious, and that an appeal to his religious convictions might actually get through.

Even as poor a student of the Torah as I am knows that God does not want to see innocent blood shed. Your recipe for Bibi would leave hundreds of thousands dead and the Middle East–including Israel–in flames. Possibly the entire world. I urge you to think carefully about unintended consequences.

And amazingly enough, this actually did open a door for some mild and thoughtful dialog. Not a perfect outcome but one I could feel reasonably good about. I had used the marketing principles I teach, and given the right message for the audience.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Peace and War, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

I got sucked into a debate on Facebook following a high school classmate’s posting a meme of some of Obama’s  economic achievements: Dow Jones increasing from 7949 to 17,830 (that’s more than 124 percent, if I’m figuring correctly); unemployment down from 7.8 to 5.8 percent; GDP from NEGATIVE 5.4 to POSITIVE 3.5 percent; and consumer confidence from 37.7 to 94.5 percent from the time Obama took office.

But as these kinds of discussions often do, it quickly turned toward non-economic politics. And good progressive that I am, I put in this comment:

Robin, you wrote, “OH I know Bush had his share of crap also but at least he proudly and openly loved this country.” I am sorry, but if loving your country means bringing it illegally into wars under utterly false pretenses, wrecking the economy, suppressing dissent (continued, to his shame, by Obama), instituting torture, dissipating international goodwill, etc., this is a “love” that needs serious social-work intervention. When an abuser says “I love you and I’ll never hit you again,” we’re skeptical. Bush was an abuser.

The person I quoted than asked me if I didn’t remember 9/11, and wasn’t Bush justified in going to war. She also asked me if I was “also a Jewish Democrat that thinks Obama is good for Israel or do you care”

I responded:

1. Of COURSE I am aware of the horrors of 9/11. I spent two weeks afterward trying to find out if my ex-housemate from Brooklyn days was OK; she was living two blocks from the WTC (she was uptown at the time, fortunately, and now lives in Colorado). And I’m one degree of separation from a couple of people who died that day. BUT Bush made war on Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with it (it’s well documented that Bin Laden and Saddam hated each other)–and, it turned out, didn’t have WMDs either. The terrorists were mostly Saudi. Afghanistan, along with Pakistan, actually did shelter the terrorists–but the appropriate response to a criminal conspiracy and criminal acts is not to destroy an entire country but to go in with a police action, capture the perps, and put them on trial. You talk about “an arrogant and narcisitic man who has tunnel vision and refuses to listen to the American people.” That would describe several US presidents, including both Obama and Bush, as well as Nixon, among others. I was out there as part of the largest peace demonstrations in history, urging Bush NOT to make war on Iraq. It was totally predictable that this would only create instability, blow away our foreign allies, and provide lots of recruitment material for terrorists. I think the Iraq war may be the worst foreign policy debacle of all US history.

2. As for Israel: I was just there this summer, and spent a LOT of time talking to all sides (including my Israel-right-or-wrong West Bank settler family members). This is not a simple situation, but ultimately, the repression and racism from Israel against the Palestinians is a far more destabilizing influence. Netenyahu’s policies do not encourage peace. They inflame hatreds. Then the Israelis cry that the Arabs hate us. There have been horrible crimes on both sides–but revenge is not the answer. Somehow, we have to get past that and make peace, as happened in Ireland/Northern Ireland and South Africa. Wallowing in the hatred just boils the cauldron harder. I do think that the majority of Israelis AND Palestinians actually want peace–but the extremists on both sides look for any wedge they can. I take hope from groups like Combatants for Peace and Neve Shalom, and it made me very sad today to hear that a joint Jewish-Arab school was torched by anti-Arab extremists. You make peace with your enemies, not necessarily your friends. Obama showed some leadership early in his presidency and then largely ignored the whole issue. He should show some more.

So, at the risk of throwing kerosene on the flames, let me ask you: what do you think of these two presidents’ foreign policy legacies? I will not censor dissent, but I will block name-calling and uncivility—so play nice, but tell me what you think.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Peace and War, People Helping People, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On a LinkedIn discussion board, someone asked, “So, why has bettering the world become a mantra for a new generation of entrepreneurs?”

This sparked a very lively discussion, mixing the cynics and the optimists.

You can view this discussion here (you might have to join the group first).

My first comment was quick and straightforward, discussing my new work at Business For a Better World:

I’m 57 years old, been in business since 1981, and my business has *always* been about fostering a better world. This year, I took it further, beginning a campaign to show business how solving hunger, poverty, war, climate catastrophe, etc. is not only the right thing to do, but can be highly profitable (and we actually already have a lot of the technology to make it possible).

But as others responded, I felt a need to go deeper, and I want to share my responses to two of them with you:

Tim asked, “…If these entrepreneurs are so hot on giving to humanity, why not put their technologies in the public domain? There’s a topic for debate: Which is the better outcome, the Gates Foundation or Wikipedia?…”

Tim  – great question! The Gates example has always interested me, in that it follows the pattern of 100-150 years ago, when predatory ubercapitalists like Carnegie and Rockefeller began to seek out a higher purpose later in life and became uberphilanthropists–yes, some of Microsoft’s practices were quite predatory under Gates’ leadership. I can’t think of an equally prominent example in the years between the “Robber Barons” and Gates. (I also think Melinda may have had a lot to do with Gates finding HIS higher purpose–but he has fully embraced it and discovered it provides meaning in his life.) Most towns in my area of New England are still using little public libraries built with Carnegie money.

Warren Buffett is another very interesting example, but his choices and motivations, I suspect, were very different. Buffett never seemed to care personally about accumulating wealth to “better” his own life. He still lives in the simple ranch house he bought in the 1950s. And as far as I know, Berkshire Hathaway under his leadership was not a predatory company. It didn’t shock me when he gave away most of is fortune–to the Gates Foundation (which kind of brings this discussion full-circle).

But I propose that it is possible to be socially conscious from the get-go AND do quite well financially, and that getting wealthy is not a sin. Prominent examples include ice cream superstars Ben Cohen and Jerry Silverman, Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, Anita Roddick of The Body Shop, and many others. I suspect the Chicken Soup guys (Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen) are in this category; they do not shy away from the trappings of wealth–but they also find many ways to use their wealth to better the world. Jack I know for sure started from very humble beginnings; I have no clue about Mark’s early years, nor can I quickly find anything in public sources.

Jennifer commented, “…The world is in crisis – how do we milk it for all it has now people are focusing on the bad guys that have put the world in crisis. ‘We make the world seem like we care’ – new market. But hang on – ‘we kind of do care – well some of us anyway’ – but hang on ‘the global village concept doesn’t seem to be working’ – Ok; so now what?

Let’s make the world betterment program a thing for entrepreneurs – get rich while you increase people hopes even though those hopes are false…”

Jennifer  – Yours is one of several cynical posts in this discussion, but yours is ambivalent while the others are pretty much set in stone. So I choose to engage with you. I think we need to harness the cynicism and skepticism about business’ ulterior motives to create the action we want, despite our suspicion of their motives. For me, seeking personal wealth has never been as important as making the world better. My millionaire colleagues would laugh at my income. Let them laugh! As long as I can motivate them to make a difference.

I am personally very cynical about the ability to solve our biggest problems–hunger and poverty, war and violence, catastrophic climate change–based on the ways we’ve always done it. Too often, we’ve tried to motivate on guilt, fear, and shame–and it doesn’t work.

So I’m taking a leaf from the libertarians and ubercapitalists and attempting to motivate based on self-interest. If your goal is personal material wealth and I can show you how to realize that goal by seizing the opportunity to make money, and the work that governments and NGOs have failed to do gets done, then fine, take your fortune and go live in your big house. Think about a super-profit-driven company like Walmart: not exactly a tree-hugger hangout. But Walmart realized years ago that there was a lot of money to be made selling organic foods, low-watt lightbulbs and other green products–and a lot of money to be saved implementing green into its own operations, deeply. I have many issues with Walmart in other areas, but on the environment, I give them BIG props. Working from the profit motive, they have done more to spread green consciousness *and* green *practices* through society than I have in a lifetime of speaking and writing and consulting.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Environment, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , ,

To lose Pete Seeger so soon after Nelson Mandela–two great champions of justice and democracy! If you want to know the true definition of an American Patriot, it’s spelled P-e-t-e  S-e-e-g-e-r. Not only was he an extremely talented musician and a devoted rabble-rouser on a host of social, labor, and especially environmental causes–for which he suffered greatly in the 1950s and ’60s–and not only can he claim a major role in cleaning up the Hudson River and co-founding the amazing Clearwater sloop and organization and folk festival…he was one of the most humble people I’ve ever met.

I used to see Pete Seeger at the Clearwater Revival, wearing a volunteer shirt and picking up trash. I got to bang a few nails with him once as he was building the Woody Guthrie (one of I think three small boats he built along with the Clearwater and the Sojourner Truth). And I interviewed at least once, saw him perform dozens of times live and numerous more on TV–growing up as a public television kid in New York City, where once the blacklist was lifted, he was frequently found on Channel 13–and hung out with him at some People’s Music Network conferences. He helped start PMN, started Sing Out! magazine, the Newport Folk Festival, a bunch of environmental and peace organizations, and many other ventures for the public good.

His 1963 Carnegie Hall concert is one of the 10 albums I’d absolutely insist on having if I were stranded on a desert island with one CD holder. Among other things, it contains the best of his dozen or so recordings of Wimoweh, long before that other group made it a top-40 hit. I own many other of his records, but that one is a standout.

 

And Pete walked his talk. Though he could certainly have afforded much grander housing, he lived for the last many decades in a small cabin outside Beacon, New York, on his beloved Hudson River, heating with wood he chopped himself. Though he could have gotten all wrapped up in ego, he spent his entire life championing newer musicians. He helped bring Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton to the world’s attention, as well as later songwriters like Dar Williams and many others.

Pete was one of three amazing lifelong activists born in the spring of 1919 who I knew personally. Miriam Leader (not much known outside of her various home communities) passed about a year ago. And Frances Crowe continues her active work for peace, justice, and the environment. The world is richer because these three people with giant hearts walked its ground. Goodbye, Pete, and thanks for all you’ve done to make my life richer. You’re probably already starting to organize amongst the angels ;-).

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By Posted on Posted in Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environmenl, Environment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, Peace and War, People Helping People, poverty, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,

Watch this video about the Copenhagen Wheel, a device that captures and stores energy from cyclists pedaling and coasting, and supplements pedal power on the uphills or over long distances. And then read a few of the comments.

To me, this is brilliant technology! First, it makes biking—and particularly bicycle commuting over distances of 20 to 50 miles—an attractive option for tens of thousands of people who’ve felt unwilling to try it before. That, in turn, reduces the number of cars on the road, which has dozens of advantages to the planet and to our pocketbooks. Second, it makes it possible for the moderate cyclist (like me) to go much farther by bike.

A lot of the comments are angry that this will disrupt their exercise. I think they’re not thinking about it the right way. Instead of blaming a machine for interfering with their workout, think about the ability to bike instead of drive to good riding places some distance away, or to bike much farther distances to explore an area farther out.

I do ride for exercise. And I do face a BIG hill when I go out my door. I’ve learned to manage it, but when I first moved to that area, it was very tough. Something like this would have been a nice transition as I learned to conquer that tough hill.

And for the exercise-only bikers, I have one more suggestion: write to the company and tell them you want a manual override option: an off switch, in other words. Then you have the boost when you need it.

Let’s apply this kind of creativity to every aspect of our lives! We could not only solve climate change but war, poverty, and other global issues. I wish this company much success!

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Environment, language, Peace and War, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Progressives can be a gloomy lot. Too often, we focus on all the things wrong with society, all the problems we need to fix. I say “we,” because I’ve certainly done my share of that global kvetch.

But every once in a while, we actually win a major victory. I’ve been actively involved in a few of them, and I have to tell you, they feel great.

One of my favorite members of Congress, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla) knows the importance of celebrating our victories. He sent out an e-mail with the headline, “Hey, We Progressives Won Something.”

I opened the e-mail and discovered what we won: we didn’t go to war against Syria. And Syria destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile, under international supervision. The massive outcry of opposition certainly helped us get there.

Grayson gives us a lot to celebrate:

Let’s celebrate the war that never happened.

Let’s celebrate NOT having to hold sad and somber funerals for young Americans who would have lost their lives fighting in Syria.

Let’s celebrate NOT having to nurse and care for the wounded veterans who would have returned from the U.S.-Syrian war.

Let’s celebrate Congress NOT having to appropriate billions of tax dollars in emergency spending to support U.S. military operations in Syria.

Let’s celebrate NOT having to attend bitter marches protesting the U.S. war in Syria.

Let’s celebrate NOT having to rebuild Syria’s roads and bridges and schools, so that we can have a shot at rebuilding our own.

Let’s celebrate peace.

We won the battle, and the military-industrial complex lost the war.

We should be proud of our victories, because our victories matter. I know that politics sometimes can seem discouraging right now. Progressive often seem to lose, and lose frequently. But, you know what? Sometimes we win. And when we win, we save lives. We promote equality. We serve the cause of justice. We improve people’s lives.

(You can read Alan Grayson’s whole essay at this blog.)

Indeed, we do! Our actions–as individuals, and especially when we band together–actually do make a difference. Think how much poorer the world would be if the likes of Nelson Mandela, Lech Walensa, Wangari Maathai (the tree-planting woman of Kenya, who won a Nobel Prize for her work establishing a greenbelt in her country), Gandhi, Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn, and Martin Luther King, Jr. had not walked it.

And you don’t need to be an activist. The world is richer for the presence of scientists like the brilliant energy strategist Amory Lovins, who is still very much alive–and Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, and George Washington Carver, who are not…writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Walker, and even Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield (his The Success Principles is the one self-help book I regularly recommend)…and ordinary people whose names you won’t recognize, who turned their lives into blessings for the world. I’m going to honor one of those unknown heroes by name: my late mother, Gloria Yoshida, who was a civil rights volunteer in the 1960s. If a black person was told an apartment had already been rented, my 5’3″ white, Jewish mom was one of the people who would go and try to rent it afterwards. I remember her yelling at our own landlord, who towered over her, and looked pretty ashamed as she lit into him because “you just don’t want to rent to them because they’re black.”

That family history made it easier for me to take on a long list of causes over the past 40 years–even organizing the movement that saved a threatened mountain while all the “experts” said “this is terrible, but there’s nothing we can do.”

What are YOU doing to make the world better? Please share in the comments section, below.

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By Posted on Posted in media-general, Peace and War, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

Last Wednesday, my local paper’s lead story was a profile of two long-time peace activists: Frances Crowe, age 94, and Arky Markham, 98. I’ve known them both for decades; you can’t be involved in peace and social justice issues in our area for long without encountering them. I saw both of them at the peace demonstration last Monday, in fact.

31 years ago, when I was actively freelancing for this same paper, I published an interview with a different pair of legendary local peace activists, and was thrilled when the paper ran it on the front page.

Of course, these four wonderful people are just the tiniest fraction of people doing good work for peace in our neighborhood and around the world.

Let’s tell our newspapers we want more stories like that on the front page :-).

Note: you may have to be a subscriber to view the link, but you should be able to at least see the headline and lead paragraph.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business-general, Energy & Sustainability, Green Business, Peace and War, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

All through the Vietnam era, we used to hear that war was terrible in so many other ways, but good for the economy. It put people to work, it allowed companies facing hardship to find customers, etc. etc.

This was always a misleading argument, as war spending created far fewer jobs than many other categories.

It seems today’s market is much more aware of the potential economic devastation of war. Consider this bit of news:

With the possibility of military action against Syria easing, investors sent the markets soaring to a sharply higher close with the Dow leaping 127 points to 15,191. Nasdaq climbed 22 points to 3729.

Incidentally, money spent on energy efficiency and going green has a much higher rate of return for the economy. Green energy spending creates more jobs, consumer spending, and long-term consumer savings that frees up cash for more spending, while war drives us deeper into debt.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Peace and War, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , ,
No War in Syria Candlelight Vigil, Northampton MA 9-9-13
No War in Syria Candlelight Vigil, Northampton MA 9-9-13

Something magical happened at the peace demonstration in Northampton, Massachusetts tonight.

A young man crossed the street to read our signs, and then engaged in dialog with four of us. He told us that he was very ambivalent, because he didn’t want to be seen as supporting chemical weapons. I told him, “I don’t think you’ll find a single one of us [sweeping my hand to indicate the more than 200 demonstrators] in favor of chemical weapons. And it isn’t clear who it was that used the chemical weapons—but it is clear that war will not solve the problem, and will destabilize the region. It doesn’t have to be only two choices: war or no action. There are a lot of other options.”

Another demonstrator talked about the likelihood that Iran and Israel would be drawn into the conflict. And someone else noted, “200,000 people have died in this conflict. I don’t see that chemical weapons are so much worse than landmines as to be worth going to war.” To which the young man replied, “That’s a really good point. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.” No doubt reflecting on our questioner’s age, the fourth demonstrator talked about the likelihood that a new war could reinstate the draft.

I spoke again: “With the possible exception of the former Yugoslavia, I can’t think of a single war after World War II where war solved the problem, and I can think of many where it made it worse. I don’t understand how killing innocent people to protest the killing of innocent people makes any sense.”

At that point, the young man said he had to go meet his friend, but he thanked us for the dialogue and said we’d left him with a lot to think about.

To me, participating in this dialogue and watching a mind open in front of us (not necessarily change, but open) makes it all worthwhile. It is so rare to get immediate feedback that our actions make a difference—but tonight, I and three other people made a difference in thinking of one young man.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
—Margaret Mead

In 44 years of participating in political protest, I can count a dozen or so times where I could see instantly that my actions actually mattered. This was one of them. Another was the very first demonstration I ever went to, in 1969 when I was 12. That time, the person who was changed was me.

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