MoveOn Bulletin, US Edition
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Editor: Susan Thompson
susan.thompson@moveon.org
Editorial Assistant: Leah Appet
leah@moveon.org

Subscribe online at:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/

 
Contents:

1. Introduction: From the Editor
2. We Sing to Reconcile Peace
3. Hope for Human Rights
4. Standing in Silence for Peace: Women in Black
5. Back to the Streets
6. Hope in the Truth
7. Hope in Hard Times
8. Credits
9. About the MoveOn bulletin and MoveOn.org

 
INTRODUCTION: FROM THE EDITOR

"There is always hope--hope enough to balance our despair. Or we would be lost."
- Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

This week's bulletin is MoveOn's final bulletin of 2002. As a change of pace, we're departing from our regular format and offering a collection of original essays, a poem, and a book excerpt, all on the topic of hope. I'd like to personally thank everyone who contributed, and especially the many subscribers to our bulletin who took the time to submit their work. It was a true pleasure to read through the emails you sent me.

If there are any conclusions to be drawn from this week's bulletin, they are that hope is found in action, and in each other, even in dark times.

The next issue of the this bulletin will be published on January 15, 2003. Until then, take care everyone, and Happy Holidays!

Sincerely,
Susan Thompson,
Leah Appet,
and the volunteer bulletin proofreading, research, and translating teams

WE SING TO RECONCILE PEACE
by Maury Eldridge

"Let us celebrate" we sing
Phulami shares his joyful voice
Of South African freedom

Leaders hunger for war
Fear votes the majority
To authorize distant death

We sing of peace
We join in act of compassion
The loving musical embrace

We swim against the tide
To "cherish life" and "call
This earth our home"

Tears crowd the corners of eyes
Closed to savor the purity
Of departed friends alive in their music

Community of song lifts eyes skyward
Toward the white cloud of revelation
Amidst glowering darkness

Beautiful soaring voices
Hauntingly hopeful words
Comfort in raising them as one

A nor’easter howls around us
We bask in the warmth
Standing together, voices reconciled

In peace

Maury Eldridge lives in Needham, MA, and is a member of a chorus group called the Mystic Chorale led by Nick Page. This poem is about the chorus and their recent "Peace and Reconciliation" concert series.

 
HOPE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
By Kenneth Roth

Ok, maybe running a human rights organization isn’t a laugh a minute. The world can be an ugly place. I encounter more accounts of slaughter and cruelty in a week than most people would want in a lifetime. But that doesn’t lead me to despair, and it’s not because I have one of those glass-half-full dispositions.

For me, the key to hope is realizing that even in distant corners of the world, there are things we can do to curb suffering and end atrocities. That’s hardly self-evident. Most people never see past the horror stories. But one of the great privileges of working at Human Rights Watch is seeing what a small group of people, combining their voice, talents, and financial generosity, can do to address even seemingly intractable problems.

Americans are particularly handicapped when it comes to understanding this power. We tend to look at human rights issues through “litigation blinders.” Living in a society with a strong and independent judiciary, we tend to think that the solution to rights violations is always to sue the bastards. Since most repressive countries don’t have functioning court systems, we despair.

The dictator-rattling innovation of the human rights movement is its development of ways to defend rights even in the absence of functioning courts. We begin with a moral universe in which most people view human rights violations as wrong. That’s why they tend to occur in the shadows. Human rights investigators operate in violent and repressive countries to document abuses, expose them to public opprobrium, and generate pressure for change.

These exposés raise the cost of abuse – in terms of the reputation, pocketbook, and liberty of those responsible. Because human rights reports receive broad press coverage, they tend to stigmatize abusive forces, depriving them of the legitimacy they need to maintain power. Because influential governments and institutions can be convinced to condition aid and loans on an end to abuse, atrocities can be financially costly to the perpetrators. And because venues area increasingly available to prosecute the worst human rights criminals, abusive leaders must now worry about their freedom.

The emotionally difficult part of this work is that we usually can’t offer immediate relief to the victims whose plight we record. But we can deploy their testimony to protect others from a repetition of their suffering. And we are moving closer to the day when their persecutors will be reliably punished.

Whether paramilitary leaders in Colombia or rebel groups in the Congo, whether the dictators in Beijing or the Russian generals in Chechnya, even the most recalcitrant abusers feel the heat. Indeed, when America’s own legal system fails – as it often does for prisoners, immigrants, gays and lesbians, terrorist suspects, and victims of the drug wars, to name a few – the tools of the human rights movement can be an essential supplement to litigation at home as well.

Does this mean we are moving toward a day when there will be no more human rights abuse? I doubt it. Governments will always find it tempting to violate human rights. But we are well past the day when human rights can be violated with impunity. If we keep raising the cost of abuse, there is every reason for hope.

Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch. Its reports, campaigns and interventions can be read at http://www.hrw.org.

 
STANDING IN SILENCE FOR PEACE: WOMEN IN BLACK
by R.L. Miller

"We’ve gotta do this!" Our excitement grew as we listened. The idea—groups of women standing silently, holding a vision of peace in the face of conflict, wearing black to signify their losses and their solidarity—captured our imaginations. That any group of women could simply decide to stand and make a difference was wonderfully empowering!

So, we decided to do it. That night. Everyone at the conference would attend the banquet. Our small group would stand for half an hour near the banquet hall as people entered. Those of us who had extra black clothes offered to share with those who hadn’t any.

We asked an artist for paper for a sign. She hesitated, then, when we told her why, made it for us, saying, "I always knew I’d do something for Women in Black." As we carried it away, a young man from Kosovo said "Ah, Women in Black! They made a big difference in Belgrade!"

We found a quiet corner on the way to the banquet hall, set up our sign, took deep breaths, and stood together. There were five of us. Then more arrived: a woman in a wheel chair; a pair of teachers; one on crutches. Slowly, we grew to thirteen. And, as we stood in silence—black against a gray stone wall—people saw us and stopped; we could almost hear them wondering. Some went by slowly; some picked up our flyers; some went around us, trying not to interfere. A few took pictures.

The half hour was over much too quickly—we felt so filled! We held hands for a moment in gratitude, returned borrowed clothing, and joined the banquet. People there commented on the power of the stand, the sense of sacred space. They thanked us for embodying the essence of the conference. It was a good way to end it.

The following Sunday, mentioning this experience to a small fellowship in conservative southern Oregon led to a request: "Can you come tell our women’s group more about this?" So I did. "We’ve got to do this!" they said.

Since then, on alternate Mondays, fifteen to twenty women, aged thirty-something to eighty-something, stand in silence, wearing black, by a footbridge across the Rogue River. On rainy or hundred-degree days they put up black umbrellas. If they can’t stand, they bring chairs. Artists come to paint and sketch. The local paper ran a full-page article and lists them in the "community calendar." Once, a small child, seeing the black-clothed women from across a parking lot, said, "Look! They’re the angels!"

And others are joining the movement. A group now stands in a smaller town, thirty miles away. Another group stands Friday noons in Portland.

We greet each other, pick a spokesperson to answer questions and hand out flyers, set up a sign, and stand. We breathe and feel the peace inside, sending it out to our community and across the world, joining our thoughts with thousands of other such groups around the world. And when it’s over, we are filled. We’ve gotta do this!

R.L. Miller is a member of Women in Black.

 
BACK TO THE STREETS
by Jim Abel

I recently walked for peace again after more than 25 years. As I stood in the crowd in Lawrence, Kansas, I thought about the changes. The marchers were on average older, in their 50s. So am I, but I felt I had stumbled into the seniors group at an Episcopalian church. There were some teens who could probably run for miles, boomers who parked close and worried how they would make it back to their car, and one old man for whom walking was an obvious source of both pride and pain.

We were more orderly than I remembered. We stood quietly; no one threw Frisbees or heckled innocent passersby. The chatter ran to leaky basements and finding a good lawyer to seek damages, instead of making bail.

We may also have become a bit more thoughtful and articulate. The after-march speakers seemed more reasonable and balanced than I remember. In the 70s rallies got a bit frantic, and I sometimes felt nearly as uncomfortable with the peaceniks, my friends, as I did with the sworn officers at the edge of the crowd.

The trappings were all there. The signs were sloppy, hastily drawn. The t-shirts were professionally lettered and the causes listed much more varied. There was a lot less hair. There was still a musical interlude, this time with drums, and we still closed with a peace hymn few could sing.

Halfway down Massachusetts Street I saw the real difference. Last time we were against the war for a dozen sometimes conflicting reasons. I never minded that; I just wanted the war to end. But deeper than reason was fear. We feared to die, to see our friends die, to kill, or to watch our friends kill. The more high-talking of us feared having to leave our country, hide or otherwise resist. We dreaded standing out, rowing against the tide of our parents and our neighbors. We feared not knowing how we would react when it was time for us or for our brothers or lovers.

It is still early; there is no draft; very few Americans have died in uniform. Fear of taking a stand may return but it scarcely showed that morning. We have all been here before; maybe the country has matured a bit, is more willing to tolerate those who question. I have some ideas about that, but they don't matter right now. I loved being in the crowd, knowing that however much I counted, it was on the right side. I loved that thirty years ago and I love it still. I don't miss the fear.

Jim Abel lives in Leawood, KS.

 
HOPE IN THE TRUTH
by Stewart Nusbaumer

War is no teacher. The skills and tactics learned are simple; the psychology of combat emphasizes maintaining restraint rather than gaining insight. What is learned from war can be learned from a single late night walk in a crime-ridden American city: the feeling of fear!

But fear turns out to have its own effect, and not always minor. Intense fear can quickly and drastically change what people believe, or more accurately, what people think they believe. The first time my life was seriously threatened -- five Marines were huddled on a sandy hill surrounded by several hundred well-equipped North Vietnamese Army troop --I realized that the price for the Vietnam War was too great. The reasons for fighting the war, that is, were ridiculously insufficient to justify my death on that desolate sand dune.

Although a 19 year-old high school drop-out, I comprehended what America's "best & brightest" were unable to comprehend, or slowly, eventually comprehended. The advantage of hard experience drove home to me what formal education could not touch.

I have never forgotten that for a young American to die on a lonely hill somewhere in the world there must be a clear, immediate threat to our country. Otherwise, it's all bunk and wasted lives.

Some knowledge requires little direct experience, while other knowledge must be grounded upon heavy experience. All too often, unfortunately, males need a close encounter with the horror of war to destroy the illusion that this or that silly war is necessary; that our "way of life" will not survive without another war. With courage now a cultural commodity sold by the media, digested by a frustrated and under-challenged populace, too many Americans fail to understand that virtual courage is not real courage. It's John Wayne for a new generation.

The movers-and-shakers of America -- filled to the arrogant brim with utter certainty and limitless "courage" -- were not in Vietnam, nor were their children. So a silly, sophomoric domino theory driven by paranoia of communism devastated a generation of young Americans. When people talk about the "Greatest Generation," the World War II generation, they never bring up the calamity of the Vietnam War. They never bring up the Vietnam War.

Liberal hawks are a unique group because they justify doing horrible things in the name of helping others, they promote war in the name of peace and justice. This was true during the 1960s and it is true today. Republican chichenhawks -- conservatives who supported the Vietnam War but did not serve in that war, and today are quick to send other Americans into new battles -- use different reasons of desperation yet are no more correct. Those on the Left and the Right who chose not to serve in the military, yet today are gung ho to send others to war, need to be viewed suspiciously. Very, very suspiciously.

The class nature of the American military system insulates intellectual and political elites distorting their view of war. Those considered the smartest in America were stupid about the Vietnam conflict, and most of our elected officials today are equally unreasonable about a war with Iraq. I know this because I have been there and done that, but they haven't. And in war, experience can make all the difference, especially for males.

This has been the root and the motive for my resisting wars for over three decades -- not every war, but almost every war.

Unlike hawks of both parties, it has never occurred to me that the American people are incapable of comprehending what is best for America. The key, however, is to give them the truth. If given the truth their sons and daughters in the military possess, if given the truth that most combat veterans possess, Americans will make the correct decision. Unfortunately, they are not being given the truth about Iraq so a new war is quickly rising on our horizon.

Despair is never a factor for me, but anger is. I'm angry the media ignores those with battle scars and highlights those that are clueless yet gung ho for war. I'm angry that callous elected officials identify less with the suffering of patriotic Americans and more with grand empire building. Today I have a lot of anger, but no despair. I believe in the basic intelligence and the goodness of the American people -- in nearly all people -- if they have the truth.

For "faith in humanity" to have substance and endurance, inspiration with reinforcement must have come from people who were near. In my case, from a large extended family that included eight aunts, none of whom graduated from high school, yet all impressed me with their wisdom and fairness. When I contrast them with the stupidity and hubris of a Robert McNamara, a Lyndon Johnson, a Henry Kissinger, a George Bush, my Jersey working class aunts and uncles come off as brilliant and golden.

When given the undistorted, unvarnished truth about big public issues, my family was right.

As a modest effort to counter the constant drum beat for war, one instigated and maintained by another generation of Americans who did not serve yet recklessly and callously insist other Americans must face an unnecessary danger, I have established Veterans Against Iraq War (www.vaiw.org). The purpose of the website is to give public voice to military veterans who oppose a war with Iraq and to organize a military veterans' march in our nation's capital.

For all the brilliant and golden aunts and uncles and their respecting offspring, veterans need to speak out, and this is what we are now doing.

Stewart Nusbaumer served with the 3rd Marine Division on the DMZ in the Vietnam War, and founded Veterans Against Iraq War (http://www.vaiw.org.) He asks that veterans, their family members, and all Americans opposed to a U.S. war with Iraq visit the site and join the efforts of Veterans Against Iraq War. He is the editor of Intervention Magazine (http://www.interventionmag.com.)

 
HOPE IN HARD TIMES
by Paul Loeb, excerpted from Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time

Working toward sometimes difficult dreams of social justice requires hope. At times we gain it from seeing tangible results from our efforts or the efforts of others. More often, it's a way of viewing the world that can be strengthened and refined through experience, helping us persevere despite all the obstacles. "You have to draw a distinction between hope and optimism," writes Cornel West. "Vaclav Havel put it well when he said 'optimism' is the belief that things are going to turn out as you would like, as opposed to 'hope,' which is when you are thoroughly convinced something is moral and right and therefore you fight regardless of the consequences." Given the meanness of our time, West isn't sure optimism is warranted, that we can necessarily count on a better common future. But his hope won't let him give up.

Hope, in this view, rarely springs from certainty. Instead, it begins and ends in what stirs our hearts, where we place our trust, how we conduct our lives. The more we voice our beliefs and speak to these longings, the more hope has a chance to emerge. We talk with new people, hear inspirational stories, build bonds with new communities. We no longer sit passively, immobilized by despair. Religious social justice activist Jim Wallis captures this self-fulfilling quality when he says, "Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change."

Those who are hopeful experience as many frustrations and disappointments as anyone else, but they're better equipped to withstand them and thus keep on for the long haul. Some of us believe in a divine spirit that's always present to support us, and in a promise that acts of courage, faith, and compassion will sooner or later make an impact--a promise that as Martin Luther King said, during the Montgomery bus boycott, "the universe bends toward justice." Because this light is always and everywhere imminent, ready to reveal itself, our religious traditions remind us that we're never completely alone and forsaken. Much as human destructiveness can ravage individual lives, communities, and even ecosystems, it cannot destroy the fundamental source of life and, thus, of hope.

Most religious traditions consciously address the question of hope, placing it within the larger spiritual framework of our lives. For those of us who don't believe in a transcendent force or being, the ultimate sources of hope are sometimes more slippery. But they also involve a sense of larger connection, drawing strength from the complex majesty of the natural world, a shifting dance of creation that existed long before humans inhabited the earth, and will exist long afterwards.

When I despair of our culture's greed and cravenness, I often go for a walk on my favorite Seattle beach. It's a long arching cove, with red-barked madrona trees growing on the tall bluffs that rise behind it. Across the water, I see the snowcapped Olympic Mountains. The sun sparkles on the waves. Ferries and freighters go by. After a short time there, I feel calmer, less frenetic, connected with something larger and more enduring. I remember that we inherit a rich and generous planet, which if we treat well, should offer enough to sustain us all.

Even if the past holds no guarantees for the future, we can still take heart from previous examples of courage and vision. We can draw hope from those who came before us, to whom we owe so much. We can remember that history unfolds in ways we can never predict, but that again and again bring astounding transformations, often against the longest of odds. Our strength can come from a radical stubbornness, from savoring the richness of our journey, and from the victories we win and lives that we change. We can draw on the community we build.

Whether religious or secular, social justice activists keep going because we know participation is essential to our dignity, to our very identity, the person we see in the mirror. To stay silent, we say, would be self-betrayal, a violation of our soul. "That's why we were put here on this earth," we stress again and again. "What better thing can we do with our lives?" "There'll be nobody like you ever again," said legendary environmentalist David Brower. "Make the most of every molecule you've got, as long as you've got a second to go. That's your charge."

98 This means responding to the ills of our time with what rabbi Abraham Heschel once called "a persistent effort to be worthy of the name human." A technical editor who chaired her local Amnesty International chapter felt demeaned just to know about incidents of torture. To do something about it helped her recover her spirit. "When you stand in front of the creator," says a Long Island grandmother active in challenging sweatshops, "you want to say I tried to make a difference. It isn't going to be what kind of car I had or how big a house. I'd like to think I tried."

Being true to oneself in this fashion doesn't eradicate human destructiveness. We need to live, as Albert Camus suggests, with a "double memory--a memory of the best and the worst." We can't deny the cynicism and callousness of which humans are capable. We also can't deny the courage and compassion that offer us hope. It's our choice which characteristics we'll steer our lives by.

Historian Howard Zinn explores the tension between our best and our worst in terms of how we view America's past. "What we choose to emphasize in this complex history," he writes, "will determine our lives. If we only see the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction." Zinn continues, "History is full of instances where people, against enormous odds, have come together to struggle for liberty and justice, and have won--not often enough, of course, but enough to suggest how much more is possible."

By deciding which side of history we want to be on we also decide what kind of community we want to part of. "Every day presents infinite reasons to believe that change can't happen," says Sonya Tinsley, a young African American activist in Atlanta, "infinite reasons to give up. But I always tell myself, 'Sonya, you have to pick your team.' It seems to me that there are two teams in this world. And that you can find evidence to support the arguments of both. The trademark of one team is cynicism. They'll tell you why what you're doing doesn't matter, why nothing is going to change, why no matter how hard you work, you're going to fail. They seem to get satisfaction out of explaining how we'll always have injustice. You can't change human nature, they say. It's foolish to try. From their experience, they might be right."

Then there's another group of people, Sonya believes, "who admit that they don't know how things will turn out, but have decided to work for change. I see Martin Luther King on that team, Alice Walker, Howard Zinn. I see my chaplain from college and my activist friends. They're always telling stories of faith being rewarded, of ways things could be different, of how their own lives have changed. They'll give you reasons why you shouldn't give up, testimonials why we've yet to see our full potential as a species. They believe we're partners in God's creation, and that change is really possible."

"There are times when both teams seem right. Both have evidence. We'll never know who's really going to prevail. So I just have to decide which team seems happier, which side I'd rather be on. And for me that means choosing on the side of faith. Because on the side of cynicism, even if they're right, who wants to win that argument anyway. If I'm going to stick with somebody, I'd rather stick with people who have a sense of possibility and hope. I just know that's the side I want to be on."

Hope may be elusive in the current political time, but only hope allows us to act with dignity and strength. And when we join together and persist, we never know what we might achieve.

Paul Loeb is the author of _Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time_ (http://www.soulofacitizen.org) and three other books on citizen activism.

 
CREDITS

Proofreading team:
Madlyn Bynum, Eileen Gillan, Mary Anne Henry, Kate Kressman-Kehoe, Kendra Lanning, Mercedes Newman, Dawn Phelps, Rebecca M. Sulock and Rita Weinstein.

 
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