Christmas in the Trenches, written and performed by John McCutcheon, as Christians around the world contemplate the birth of the Prince of Peace, in a barn.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/sJi41RWaTCs]
“Each Christmas come since World War II’ve learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.”
Thanks to my sister in law Jennifer for bringing this song to my attention.
Poet, writer, and activist Eve Ensler’s passionate TED talk entitled “Suddenly, my body”. Breathtaking.
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[youtube=http://youtu.be/bHLgTUV0XWI]
It feels like it’s been a brutal week – the Boston bombings and the ensuing manhunt occupying the foreground of North American media, to the backdrop of the unrelenting violence in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and of course the threats of North Korea’s newest fruitcake. Then there’s the relentless attack on our ecosystem, that from which we derive our life and our sustenance, from people consumed with greed, who are supported and even cheered on by our suicidal economic & political system. Outside my window, our northern Ontario spring has turned Narnia like, where it’s always winter and never spring. To top it off, I’ve got a head cold.
So here’s what I need to hear on this Friday, maybe you do to. Here’s some good news:
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And more good news (thanks to my brother Tom for sending me this link):
And in the column of bizarre but funny, this headline:
Have a wonderful weekend everyone.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/wJZ3bcPr-Ds]
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Via @AnonymousOpsIRC on Twitter: From Boston to Afghanistan, nobody deserves to get blown up at anytime. #peace not #war
American comedian Patton Oswalt posted a thoughtful response to the Boston bombings on his Facebook wall, reflecting on the goodness that remains in the world:
…I don’t know what’s going to be revealed behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.
But here’s what I DO know. If it’s one person or a HUNDRED people, that is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the percent of the population on this planet. You watch videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out…This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in a while, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointing the way towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness…(click here to read in full)
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Whenever darkness crosses our path, we all have a choice in how we respond.
More links:
Boston Marathon Tragedy Met With Unbelievable Acts Of Kindness
Bomb Attacks Across Iraq Kill 50, Injure 300
It’s TED Talk Tuesday on 350orbust. In this talk, author William Ury, co-founder of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation and Senior Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project, discusses resolving human conflict by walking from “no” to “yes”, drawing from his own wide experience of conflict situations. Truly inspiring!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc6yi_FtoNo]
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In 1872 Julia Ward Howe, an American women’s rights activist, published the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Horrified by the carnage of war, Ward Howe worked tirelessly for years to establish a “Mother’s Day for Peace” Sunday honouring peace, motherhood and womanhood. These Sundays were a precursor to the modern Mother’s Day that we are celebrating today.
In these times of increasing global climate destabilization from human-caused climate change, we need to reclaim the idea of Mother’s Day for Peace. Mothers everywhere need to say loudly and clearly that we will not put our children and grandchildren’s future at risk because our leaders tell us that the economy is more important that their future.
The Mother’s Day Proclamation that follows was written by Julia Ward Howe, who also wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Read it today with the spectre of the wars over food, water, and land that lie ahead of us from a destabilized climate looking over your shoulder, and consider it a call to action whatever role you play in the human family.
Mother’s Day Proclamation
Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God –
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
“Recent scientific evidence has…given us a picture of the physical impacts on our world that we can expect as our climate changes. And those impacts go far beyond the environmental. Their consequences reach to the very heart of the security agenda.”
Margaret Beckett, former British foreign secretary
This is the quote that opens Gwynne Dyer’s book, Climate Wars. Mr Dyer is a London-based independent Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist and military historian. In 2010 he received the Order of Canada. His website summarizes his career this way:
Born in Newfoundland, he received degrees from Canadian, American and British universities, finishing with a Ph.D. in Military and Middle Eastern History from the University of London. He served in three navies and held academic appointments at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Oxford University before launching his twice-weekly column on international affairs, which is published by over 175 papers in some 45 countries.
His first television series, the 7-part documentary ‘War’, was aired in 45 countries in the mid-80s. One episode, ‘The Profession of Arms’, was nominated for an Academy Award. His more recent television work includes the 1994 series ‘The Human Race’, and ‘Protection Force’, a three-part series on peacekeepers in Bosnia, both of which won Gemini awards. His award-winning radio documentaries include ‘The Gorbachev Revolution’, a seven-part series based on Dyer’s experiences in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in 1987-90, and ‘Millenium’, a six-hour series on the emerging global culture.
So, what does Climate Wars have to say about the challenges the world faces in the coming decades, thanks to the grossly inadequate response of most governments to the threat that it poses? Some of the expected consequences of runaway climate change in the decades ahead are dwindling resources, massive population shifts, natural disasters, spreading epidemics, drought, rising sea levels, plummeting agricultural yields, devastated economies, and political extremism. Any one of these could tip the world towards conflict. Mr. Dyer points out that the military forces of both the United States and Britain have taken this threat seriously for years, although under George W. Bush’s presidency, it was dangerous to one’s career to be seen treating climate change as a real and serious phenomenon. Despite that, the Pentagon hired the CNA Corporation to study the geopolitics of climate change. The resulting report, produced by the CNA Corporation in collaboration with eleven retired three- and four-star generals, was issued in April 2007 and is titled National Security and Climate. In that report, General Anthony C. Zinni, former commander-in-chief, U.S. Central Command, wrote:
You already have great tension over water [in the Middle East]. These are cultures often built around a single source of water. So any stresses on the rivers and aquifers can be a source of conflict. If you consider land loss, the Nile Delta region is the most fertile ground in Egypt. Any losses there [from a storm surge] could cause a real problem, again because the region is so fragile.
We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll. There is no way out of this that does not have real costs attached to it.
For more of Gwynne Dyer on climate change, check out these videos or go to CBC’s website to listen to Climate Wars.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaFphYKT_I0]
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