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I recently (Aug. 24, 2002), attended a day of mindfulness and meditation with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist Monk.  He has non-violent ideas for responses to terrorism and for peace in the world - naturally - he's a monk.  

My general thought has been that our current foes don't care to discuss anything with us, or try for understanding; they just want to kill us.  But, putting together this page, I have almost convinced myself.   The Hippy Peacenik is alive and well in my soul.

One of my heroes, John Lennon, would be proud of this effort, I think.  I will dedicate this small page to him.  Please enjoy the mp3s.  Yoko may feel differently (about the mp3s).

Jimmy Carter wins Nobel Peace Prize
Article from bbc news.
Dec. 10, 2002
In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, former US president Jimmy Carter warned of the potentially "catastrophic consequences" of a pre-emptive US war on Iraq.

Read Jimmy Carter's acceptance speech.
quoting from it:
 "To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honorable recourse in the effort to save the peace. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions that beget further war."

"We must remember that today there are at least eight nuclear powers on earth, and three of them are threatening to their neighbors in areas of great international tension. For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventive war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences."


Learn more about the Nobel Peace Prize at the official site.

The Carter Center -
Their mission: The Carter Center, in partnership with Emory University, is guided by a fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering; it seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health.  

The text of his Nobel acceptance speech is at the Carter Center site also.

The file names are goofy to fool the spiders.  Please rename them after downloading.  The letters ABC have been added.

United for Peace  

First Casualty of War:  Poetry

Jan. 31, 2003.  U.S. first lady Laura Bush canceled a Feb. 12 poetry symposium at the White House after she learned that some of the invited poets intended to recite anti-war poems. > more from Yahoo News.

So, the poets started a Web site to gather poems to send to the White House.  The organizer asks "every poet to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend his or her name to our petition against this war, and to make February 12 a day of Poetry Against the War."


"Mrs. Bush, You're no Jacqueline Kennedy. I knew Jacqueline Kennedy. I've worked with Jacqueline Kennedy. And you're no Jacqueline Kennedy."  --- me

I am reading "Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis."  Her daughter Caroline compiled them, and it's a wonderful book and tribute to her mother.

Jan. 18, 2003  
From San Francisco to Washington, D.C., from Paris to Tokyo, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the world's streets Saturday to protest potential military action against Iraq by the Bush administration and its allies

Tens of thousands of people converged on the National Mall (Washington DC) to rally and march against U.S. military operations in Iraq 

Britons join protests against Iraq war

Celebrities demonstrate against war  
Dec. 10, 2001

More than 100 Hollywood celebrities have written to President Bush, urging him to avoid a first-strike war with Iraq.
-UPI release.

Who is Thich Nhat Hanh?
(pronounced Tik Not Hawn)

He is a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, Zen Master, poet, peace and human rights activist.  Born in Vietnam in 1926, he joined the Monkhood at 16.  He was exiled from Vietnam for his activism against the Vietnam war.  He spoke to Robert McNamara about the war, and also persuaded Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak out publicly against the war.  Dr. King nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Nhat Hanh led the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace talks.  He lives in Plum Village, France, a Buddhist monastery.

Moveon.org - For the last seven months, MoveOn members have been working hard to prevent a unilateral, pre-emptive war on Iraq.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.  Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it."

International Answer Org.
a.n.s.w.e.r = act now to stop war and end racism

From the Common Dreams News Center:
Rep. Barabara Lee introduced House Resolution 473 which urges the United States to re-engage the diplomatic process and stresses our government's commitment to the U.N. inspections process.

International Action Center
"Information, activism, and resistance to U.S.
militarism, war, and corporate greed.  Linking with struggles against racism and oppression within the United States."

TrueMajority.org

Peaceful Tomorrows
Peaceful Tomorrows was founded by family members of 9/11 victims.  Its mission is to seek effective nonviolent responses to terrorism, and identify a commonality with all people similarly affected by violence throughout the world.


Proposed Department of Peace Legislation
On July 11, 2001 Congressman Kucinich (D-OH)  introduced H.R. 2459, a bill to create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace which embodies a broad-based approach to peaceful, non-violent conflict resolution at both domestic and international levels.

Kucinich Says Give Peace A Chance
Introduces Legislation To Create Department Of Peace
"The time for peace is now," Congressman Kucinich said. "At the dawn of a new millennium, there is no better time to review age old challenges with new thinking that peace is not only the absence of violence, but the presence of a higher evolution of human awareness with respect, trust and integrity toward humankind.

Summary of Dept. of Peace legislation.

Bringing Palestinians and Israelis together in Plum Village, France:
"Peace Begins with Myself" is a unique project of reconciliation and peaceful communication between Palestinians and Israelis led by Thich Nhat Hanh. Participants are taking part in a process of healing and transformation. The project aims to create a mixed group of Palestinians and Israelis who will individually and collectively practice the cultivation of being at peace and building communication between the two sides.

"Usually, in the Middle East, we use so much anger to express our suffering and that is why we cannot speak to or listen to each other. Here we were able to express suffering without anger and to really listen" - Report of Israeli-Palestinian group in Plum Village, summer 2001

FCNL
FCNL, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, is a Quaker lobby in the public interest. FCNL seeks to bring the concerns, experiences and testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends to bear on policy decisions in the nation's capital.

Veterans For Peace
Veterans For Peace includes men and women veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, other conflicts and peacetime veterans. "Our collective experience tells us wars are easy to start and hard to stop and that those hurt are often the innocent. Thus, other means of problem solving are necessary."

Veterans For Peace is an official Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) represented at the UN.

Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center
Links to lots of US peace organizations.

American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace, and humanitarian service.

More from the American Friends Service Committee site:

"The U.S.'s approach to combating terrorism through military might will notwork.  Indeed, it may only lead to further anti-U.S. frustration around the world and feed the cause of terrorists."

"The United Nations offers an alternative, multilateral approach that would be more effective and less harmful. This approach includes short-term and long-term efforts, addressing both immediate acts of terror and the ground from which terrorism grows."

You can sign the Iraq Peace Pledge

Peace Response Org.
Peace Response is an effort to share ideas, strategies, and resources within the American Friends Service Committee and peace community. 

Mahatma Gandhi
Learn about Mahatma Gandhi.  Detailed readings.  The non-violence pages of the Gandhi site.

We must become the change we want to see in the world.  - Mahatma Gandhi

Lot's of links to pages on Gandhi.  The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research
Nonviolence Forum presents a collection of articles, analyses and reports which highlight the contemporary relevance of nonviolence. It also contains philosophical, conceptual and historical aspects on nonviolence and the role of leading proponents, activists and theoreticians in the field, M.K. Gandhi in particular.

The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi

Gandhi An Autobiography 
The Story of My Experiments With Truth  (From Amazon.com)
I have this one and will try to write a small opinion in the next few days.

I've read In Retrospect and plan to read Argument Without End. Though while reading I shared many of the disappointments others have that these were supposedly our "best and brightest" leaders who incompetently and dishonestly continued to lead us further into Vietnam, I am very glad Robert McNamara had the guts to break 27 years of silence and write the book. 

Yes, perhaps he is trying to cleanse his soul, find forgiveness, but also I am sure he wrote to try to prevent the same mistakes from happening again.  He says:
The two administrations he served made their "terribly wrong" decisions because of "an error not of values and intentions but of judgment and capabilities," and ". . .we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why." 

On conversations he has had with American and Vietnamese scholars and officials between 1995 and 1998 he writes "The discussions were frank and tough throughout, as befits the first-ever discussion by former enemies of this tragic war," ... "Had this dialogue occurred in real time, rather than in retrospect, I believe the tragedy could have been prevented." 


John F. Kennedy Jr.’s toast to Robert McNamara at TIME Magazine’s 75th anniversary party regarding McNamara's book In Retrospect:

"Robert McNamara did what few have done. He took full responsibility for his decisions and admitted that he was wrong. Judging from the reception he got, I doubt many public servants will be brave enough to follow his example.... I would like to thank him for teaching me something about bearing great adversity with great dignity, an adversity endured only by those who dare to accept great responsibility." 

Lessons of War

For anyone interested in the Vietnam War, and the inside politics of war, former Secretary of Defense (1961 to 1968) Robert McNamara's controversial book tells the inside and personal story of America's descent into Vietnam.

In Retrospect:  The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by  Robert S. McNamara and Brian Vandemark (Contributor).

"Both Hanoi and Washington could have accomplished their purposes without the appalling loss of life,"  McNamara writes in Argument Without End:

By Robert S. McNamara

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