December 31, 2010 at 08:13:34

Compassionate Resistance - #4 Study Peace

By Jeeni Criscenzo (about the author)


Solar Circle with Yin Yang Clouds by self

Study Peace: I ain't gonna' study war no more.

From every direction we are continually being encouraged to hate. Sometimes the message is as subtle as a racist innuendo peppered into the nightly news, other times it's blatant and cruel and spoken by some authority figure who by their status lends their hatefulness acceptability. Online comments to news items and blogs are often so mean-spirited that they choke off all incentive to carry on a civil dialogue. As our standard of living steadily declines, we are handed scapegoats on a silver platter: blame it on the immigrants, the gays, the homeless, the liberals, the Muslims, the Chinese, the Mexicans, the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Baggers and those atheists who dare to wish you Happy Holidays! Enough!

How are we going to stand up to the bully banksters and globalists if we're draining our energy fighting amongst ourselves? We are obviously being manipulated by the oldest trick in the book -" Divide and Conquer! This constant bickering over silliness while the bullies rape and pillage our world, is tearing apart families and neighbors. Instead of scrambling to figure out how to get us out of this mess, our legislators have proudly assured us that they committed to fueling partisan bickering and one-upmanship, as if this was a game and not our lives!

Obviously we can't count on government to help us, so let's stop playing their game and depleting our energy by taking sides. Most of us have figured out by now that neither party is on our side, but we cling to old loyalties like our baby blankie, so we are repeatedly pulled into the fray, taking sides and accomplishing nothing.

I'm not suggesting that we stop working for justice and causes we know are critical to our mutual survival. This is no time to be silent or remain neutral. What I am suggesting is that we try to be more aware of our approach and to recognize that we have, as the song goes, been carefully taught to hate. And because of that, we tend to act, speak and think within a violent framework. Listen to the conversations around you today and see how many violent words tumble off our tongues without a thought. Now that I am more attuned to this, it astonishes me to hear how often people, who are committed to peace, talk about "fighting" for this or that cause. Go back to the first sentence in this paragraph and notice that I used the word "working" instead. Such a small thing a word is, that it can put us in such a different place.

I was fortunate to have a conversation with Marcelline Brogli, who teaches non-violent communication (NVC), when I decided to run for Congress in 2006. Knowing how mean-spirited politics can be, she challenged me to use NVC throughout my campaign and offered to teach me how to do it. I'd always considered myself a peaceful person, but with Marcelline's guidance I began to hear my responses through the ears of others, and to feel how hurtful my words could be. I can't claim that I was the perfect student, and I still often lapse into the old way of carelessly speaking my mind and trying to clean up the mess afterwards. But I've learned to be more conscious of the power of my thoughts and words, and to be kind to myself as well as others, as we all have a lot of learning to do -" or perhaps un-learning would be more apt.

Learning and practicing non-violence is one of the most effective strategies for building a Compassionate Resistance movement because it takes us out of the battlefield of the bullies and forces them to play on our turf. You could call it having the "Home Team Advantage". Bullies don't know how to respond to non-violence. What's more, they tend back down when facing a united front and we can't be united if we're always bickering. That's why they put so much effort into inciting us to fight amongst ourselves.

Here's an example of how foreign non-violence is to the status quo. Our organization, Amikas, has been going back and forth with the IRS for almost a year now just to get their approval as a 501(c)(3) organization so donations to us can be tax deductible and we can apply for VA and HUD grants. The problem started when we referred to our plan to build cooperative communities. Apparently the IRS is only capable of seeing the word "cooperative" in one light -- as a co-op. And co-ops cannot be 501(c)(3) organizations! Try to explain to the IRS that cooperative means that people work with one another for the common good. Does not compute. We had to change our corporate purpose, by-laws and application to remove the word cooperative. But yesterday I received yet ANOTHER letter requesting even more assurance that we are not a co-op, because we they found the word cooperation was still on our website!

I'm not going to go into all the details on how to practice non-violent communication. The method Marceline taught me is based on the work of Marshall Rosenberg http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/index.htm, but there are many other good approaches that you can find online. Like all good things, it doesn't come easily, and I doubt anyone can be non-violent all the time. But the effort is worthwhile. Our goal is to get through these difficult times we find ourselves in, and we can do that a lot better if we know how to communicate and cooperate with all the people in our community.

Now I need to remind myself to practice NVC in my response to the IRS -" arrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!

www.criscenzo.com

Jeeni Criscenzo is an entrepreneur, peace activist and author. She was 2006 Democratic candidate for Congress - 49th District. In 2003 she traveled around the country in an RV, writing her daily blog: CPR4Democracy. She is also a founder of (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Sunday Book Review

Why Criticism Matters

Illustration by Leonardo Sonnoli

By THE EDITORS

We live in the age of opinion­ — offered instantly, effusively and in increasingly strident tones. Much of it goes by the name of criticism, and in the most superficial sense this is accurate. We do not lack for contentious assertion — of “love it” or “hate it,” of “wet kisses” and “takedowns,” of flattery versus snark, and assorted other verbal equivalents of the thumb held up or pointed down. This “conversation” is often lively. Sometimes it is fun. Occasionally it is informed by genuine understanding as opposed to ideological presumption.

But where does it leave the serious critic, one not interested, say, in tabulating the number of “Brooklyn novelists” who receive attention each year in publications like this one (data possibly more useful to real estate agents and sociologists than to readers)? Where does it leave the critic interested in larger implications — aesthetic, cultural, moral? This question prompted us to approach six accomplished critics, each well versed in the idioms of the moment but also steeped in the older traditions of literature and criticism. We asked the six to explain what it is they do, why they do it and why it matters. We asked them, additionally, to undertake the assignment in the spirit Alfred Kazin did half a century ago in his ambitious statement of purpose “The Function of Criticism Today.” (Not that Kazin was the first critic to reflect on the “function” and value of his craft. See our essay “Masters of the Form” for other examples, some dating back to the 19th century.)

Six accomplished critics explain the importance of their work.

Stephen Burn | Katie Roiphe
Pankaj Mishra | Adam Kirsch
Sam Anderson | Elif Batuman

Editors’ Introduction

More Critics on Criticism

Why Criticism Matters

Masters of the Form

Associated Press (Wilde); Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Eliot and Jarrell); Rischgitz/Getty Images (Arnold); Gjon Mili/Time Life Pictures -- Getty Images (Trilling); Associate Press/New York Public Library (Whitman)

Clockwise from top left: Oscar Wilde, T. S. Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Randall Jarrell, Lionel Trilling and Walt Whitman.

By JENNIFER B. McDONALD

Published: December 31, 2010

The inspiration for the six essays anchoring the Book Review this week was Alfred Kazin’s polemic “The Function of Criticism Today,” written in 1960 (and published in Commentary). But Kazin belongs to a long tradition of critics who have cast a keen eye over their vocation. In fact, Kazin’s essay echoes T. S. Eliot’s “Function of Criticism,” published in 1923, which itself echoed Matthew Arnold’s celebrated “Function of Criticism at the Present Time,” written in 1864.

And there have been many other defenses of criticism — by Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde and Lionel Trilling, to name only a few — each an effort to establish, or re-­establish, the continuing relevance of a literary form whose value has been challenged for much of its modern history.

The critic, Kazin wrote, “is a thinker, and it is the force . . . of his thinking that gets him to say those things that the artist himself may value as an artist, the reader as a reader.” He “is not an artist,” Kazin asserted, “except incidentally.” Yet the critics Kazin commends all wrote in a high and even virtuosic style.

Take Edmund Wilson, who in “Axel’s Castle,” his study of symbolism in modern literature, wrote the following (in 1931): “We must recognize in Proust, it seems to me, one of the great minds and imaginations of our day, absolutely comparable in our own time, by reason both of his powers and of his influence, to the Nietzsches, the Tolstoys, the Wagners and the Ibsens of a previous generation. He has recreated the world of the novel from the point of view of relativity: he has supplied for the first time in literature an equivalent on the full scale for the new theory of modern physics.”

Or consider Mary McCarthy (Wilson’s third wife, as it happens), whose 1962 review of Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” opened up vistas few others had seen: “When the separate parts are assembled, according to the manufacturer’s directions, and fitted together with the help of clues and cross-references, which must be hunted down as in a paper chase, a novel on several levels is revealed, and these ‘levels’ are not the customary ‘levels of meaning’ of modernist criticism but planes in a fictive space, rather like those houses of memory in medieval mnemonic science, where words, facts and numbers were stored till wanted in various rooms and attics, or like the Houses of astrology into which the heavens are divided.”

As for writing on the critical mind itself? There is a trove of deliciously quotable passages. Below is a sampling.

The Function of Criticism Today: “Any critic who is any good is going to write out of a profound inner struggle between what has been and what must be, the values he is used to and those which presently exist, between the past and the present out of which the future must be born. This struggle with oneself as well as with the age, out of which something must be written and which therefore can be read — this is my test for a critic.” — ALFRED KAZIN 1960

The Function of Criticism: “The most important qualification which I have been able to find, which accounts for the peculiar importance of the criticism of practitioners, is that a critic must have a very highly developed sense of fact. This is by no means a trifling or frequent gift. And it is not one which easily wins popular commendations. The sense of fact is very slow to develop, and its complete development means perhaps the very pinnacle of civilization.” — T. S. ELIOT 1923

The Function of Criticism at the Present Time: “The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free creative activity, is the true function of man; it is proved to be so by man’s finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, that men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in other ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it were not so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true happiness of all men.” — MATTHEW ARNOLD 1864

The Age of Criticism: “Criticism demands of the critic a terrible nakedness: a real critic has no one but himself to depend on. He can never forget that all he has to go by, finally, is his own response, the self that makes and is made up of such responses — and yet he must regard that self as no more than the instrument through which the art is seen, so that the work of art will seem everything to him and his own self nothing.” — RANDALL JARRELL 1952

Democratic Vistas: “Our fundamental want today in the United States, with closest, amplest reference to present conditions, and to the future, is of a class, and the clear idea of a class, of native authors, literatuses, far different, far higher in grade than any yet known, sacerdotal, modern, fit to cope with our occasions, lands, permeating the whole mass of American mentality, taste, belief, breathing into it a new breath of life, giving it decision, affecting politics far more than the popular superficial suffrage, with results inside and underneath the elections of presidents or Congresses — radiating, begetting appropriate teachers, schools, manners, and, as its grandest result, accomplishing (what neither the schools nor the churches and their clergy have hitherto accomplish’d, and without which this nation will no more stand, permanently, soundly, than a house will stand without a substratum) a religious and moral character beneath the political and productive and intellectual bases of the States. For know you not, dear, earnest reader, that the people of our land may all read and write, and may all possess the right to vote — and yet the main things may be entirely lacking?” — WALT WHITMAN 1871

The Liberal Imagination: “The job of criticism would seem to be, then, to recall liberalism to its first essential imagination of variousness and possibility, which implies the awareness of complexity and difficulty. To the carrying out of the job of criticizing the liberal imagination, literature has a unique relevance, not merely because so much of modern literature has explicitly directed itself upon politics, but more importantly because literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity and difficulty.” — LIONEL TRILLING 1950

The Critic as Artist: “To the critic the work of art is simply a suggestion for a new work of his own, that need not necessarily bear any obvious resemblance to the thing it criticizes. The one characteristic of a beautiful form is that one can put into it whatever one wishes, and see in it whatever one chooses to see; and the Beauty, that gives to creation its universal and aesthetic element, makes the critic a creator in his turn, and whispers of a thousand different things which were not present in the mind of him who carved the statue or painted the panel or graved the gem.” — OSCAR WILDE 1890

December 29, 2010 at 22:14:12

Compassionate Resistance - #3 - Don't Feed the Beast

By Jeeni Criscenzo (about the author)

opednews.com

#3 DON'T FEED THE BEAST: First rule in conflict is not to help your opponent

99.9% of the world's population is being systematically impoverished by Greed Trade and Casino Economics. The weapon being used to enslave us is a monetary system based on debt and compound interest. Our oppressor is not human - it is a monstrosity that has been given all the rights of a human but it is not daunted by human compassion nor morals. It exists for one purpose - profit. All those things that we hold in high regard: love; life; beauty; peace; are of no consequence to this single-minded monster. Our existence is tolerated for one purpose - to feed the beast as consumers.

Ah, but you protest, because it is human beings, after all, who create and run corporations. Human beings are on the board of directors. Human beings make the laws that keep these monsters in check" and unfortunately, human beings are susceptible to the siren songs of greed and power. We have reached a tipping point where the same elite clique of unabashedly evil "human beings" sit on the boards of an increasingly consolidated group of global corporations.

Money is the manna of our oppressors. And debt is their dessert! Every time we borrow money we are feeding a system designed to keep us enslaved. It starts the moment our kids reach the threshold of adulthood and take out student loans for college - loans that can never be forgiven, no matter what, even in bankruptcy. Think about it - our taxes bailed out the banksters but our kids can't get bailed out even if they can't find a job- any job, after going into hock to get an education.

The only way we can keep the banksters at bay is to opt out of their debt ponzi scheme. Here's a few steps you can take:

1. Get out of debt. This is going to be difficult, if not impossible, if you are like most middle class Americans struggling just to make ends meet. Add up how much money you pay in interest every year and think about how much easier it would be of you didn't have to just give that money away to the banksters. That should motivate you to try step 2.
   
   
2. Don't spend money on anything you don't really need. We are constantly being bombarded with messages to hand over our money to the banksters. How much are you spending every month on web access on your cell phone? Do you really need to upgrade your car, computer, house or (fill in the blank?). Stay out of malls, big-box stores and supermarkets and any place that is designed to get you to spend money impulsively. That includes TV shopping channels and online stores. If you really need something, check to see if you can find it in a thrift store first. Buy your food as close to the raw ingredients as possible, and with the least amount of packaging or branding so you are not paying for the marketing. Check out your farmer's market and food co-op- even if prices seem a little higher, you are supporting your local economy instead of a factory-farm in China.
   
   
3. Get out of the stock market. If you still have money in the stock market, ask yourself why you are continuing to feed the hand that is choking you. People ask me, "Where should I invest my money?" Do you have family or friends who are struggling to pay off high interest debts? Some credit cards are charging as much as 30% interest! Yes, it's risky to lend money to friends and family, but in comparison to the shellacking' the banksters have in store for small investors, I'd put my money on family. Many cultures have been doing this for generations and it brings up the standard of living for the group. Imagine what a difference it would make if you earned 6% interest on a loan to a family member so they can pay off a 30% credit card. Everyone benefits except the banksters. Just make sure you stipulate that they have to cancel the credit card as part of the deal.
   
   
4. Stop banking with banks. If you have a bank account in any of the big bankster banks, you are a frontline beast feeder! Get out of there! There are many local credit unions that offer most of the same services as commercial banks and it takes only a small effort to make the switch. Most credit unions will also serve business accounts.
   
   
5. Invest in your community. These days, when money is tight, it's difficult for many of us to donate money to organizations and non-profits are feeling the pinch. It's worth doing some research before deciding where to contribute your money. I know I'm going to catch flack for this, but I'm a cancer survivor so I have a right to say it- think about where the money is going when you donate to a cancer cure organization. Do you really want to help fund pharmaceutical research departments when they are making phenomenal profits that they use to lobby Congress to keep regulations in check? Wouldn't your donation be better on a local group that helps poor people with terminal illnesses?
   
   
6. Give the gift of your time and attention. As another holiday season draws to a close, I'd like to suggest that we take consumerism out of Christmas. How did it happen that we have been convinced that we must buy stuff for everyone every year? Most gifts that are given are absolutely not needed by the recipient. We've bought into a "gimme gimme gimme" culture and we're passing it on to our children. We collectively agree to pretend that a mythical fat man is going to bring our children a bunch of stuff that they've been hypnotized into wanting, when in reality parents feel obligated go into debt every year to buy this stuff because, if they don't, somehow their kids are going to be traumatized! Stop letting Madison Avenue bully you! Instead of rushing around to the mall trying to figure out what sh*t you can buy your relatives, write them a letter, a REAL letter on pretty paper, that tells them how much you love them. Twenty years from now they will still slip that note out of its envelope and read it and feel loved. Or invite your friend over for lunch and make a big pot of homemade soup with enough that they can take a jar home with them so it will fill their home with a delicious aroma so much better than a scented candle!
   
   
7. Down size. Have you ever visited a friend who just bought a very big house and noticed that the rooms seem empty? Then you visit them a few months later and everything is beautifully decorated and fully furnished. Whether or not they had to go into debt to fill those rooms, odds are they don't really need all that stuff, or all the work of keeping things looking nice. Nature abhors a void, and so, it seems, do people. I learned this first-hand. In 2004 I reduced my possessions down to fit in a small RV and had everything I needed to get by. When the price of gas started to go up and the cost of space in an RV park got higher than renting an apartment, I sold my RV and rented a 400 sq. ft. apartment and that seemed like plenty of room at the time. Five years and one husband later I am renting a lovely two bedroom house and I don't know how I ever managed for a year in that RV. The point is that we can all live with a lot less. It might not be feasible for some people to downsize when their mortgages are "upside-down" (higher than the value of their house) and, in fact, many families are finding it necessary to double-up (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/us/29families.html) in these difficult times. One way many of us can downsize is by getting rid of everything you have in storage. Think about what it is costing you to keep stuff you don't use. These days it's pretty easy to sell things on Craigslist or eBay or give it away on Freecycle. if you want to know more about the benefits of down-sizing, look up "voluntary simplicity" on the internet or go to http://criscenzo.com/simplicity.htm.
   
   
8. Start living as if peak-oil has already happened - because it has. The price of gasoline is going to continue to go up. Families are spending more and more of their income on filling up the gas tank. Don't wait until only the wealthy can buy gas to start planning your no-gas strategy. Let your local government know that this is NOT the time to be cutting back on public transportation and increasing fares. Investing money in building roads is insanity! If your family can manage on one vehicle, sell the one that uses the most gas and start monitoring how much unnecessary driving you might be doing. If you take a bike to a local farmer's market you will only be able to buy what you can take home on your bike- it really make you more conscious of what you're buying, and you'll get some exercise in the bargain. If you are looking for a place to live, be sure access to public transportation and walkability to stores, work and school are on your checklist.

These are eight "doable" suggestions. I hope you will sit down with your family and talk about them and see if you can get consensus to try at least one of these blatant acts of Compassionate Resistance. Tomorrow I will write about Suggestion #4 - Study Peace: I ain't gonna' study war no more.

Here is a poem to inspire you to stop feeding the beast!

More or Less

Give me more.

I want more!

Fill it up, and then some.

I can't afford it,

nor can you,

but if we hoard it

no one else will get it,

So give me more!

It's never enough,

when you just want stuff.

But I don't care if millions starve,

and the future is impaired,

so long as I get MY share.

So just give me more!

Because bigger is better

I must Viagra-size my world.

My car and house are super-sized.

I need more bathrooms

than occupants,

because I have so much sh*t.

But I want more!

Fill up this endless emptiness,

with lots of junk

and food that's fast

and white and free of nutrients,

leaving me always hungry

for more.

Wal-Mart shoppers beware

when you price compare,

the hidden costs

of conspicuous consumption

are enslaving and degrading you

for everything you think you own

continues to extract a price,

even when the shine is dulled

and your interest in it ended

it must be stored and insured

and of course, defended.

But for God's sake, give me more!

Like crazed junkies we clamor

for the latest craze

we've been programmed to enamor.

Whoever dies with the most toys

is finally free from their excess,

because

we who possess the most

are the most possessed.

So maybe we should just

change our tune

to --

Give me less.

~~~~

www.criscenzo.com

Jeeni Criscenzo is an entrepreneur, peace activist and author. She was 2006 Democratic candidate for Congress - 49th District. In 2003 she traveled around the country in an RV, writing her daily blog: CPR4Democracy. She is also a founder of (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

December 28, 2010 at 06:38:40

Compassionate Resistance - Part 2 - Being Resourceful

By Jeeni Criscenzo (about the author)

opednews.com

#2 BEING RESOURCEFUL: In the end, those who know how to survive will be the ones who will survive.

I cooked up a traditional Italian feast this Christmas for family and friends, and in return I feasted on their compliments, especially that minute of total silence when everyone was so focused on what they were eating that they all stopped talking! I'd been preparing that meal for two days, with two kinds of lasagna (traditional meat and béchamel spinach) as the main course, side dishes of zucchini, mashed Kobocha squash, string bean casserole and garlic bread, appetizers of toasted pita bread and hummus, fennel and celery sticks, and for dessert, Espresso with home-baked almond and chocolate biscotti! Everything was organic and made from scratch and the nurturing mother in me was gratified to know that in addition to delighting everyone's taste buds, I had provided them with healthy nourishment. The camaraderie and laughter that was shared across four generations during that meal made all the effort worthwhile.

Afterwards, when I was portioning out leftovers for my guests to take home, I thought about how unfortunate it is that so few people these days know how to cook. I mean, really cook -- starting with basic ingredients and knowing how to embellish a recipe or create your own. How many households don't have anyone who can put together a healthy meal using whatever fresh produce is in season and whatever whole grains are on hand? It's an important question for many reasons, including health, costs and the future availability of food.

Unfortunately, those skills that were once relegated to women: cooking, sewing, gardening and even child care, seem to have been cast off along with the abuse and restrictions that kept women suppressed for centuries. Just as I was settling into the traditional female role of wife and mother, my liberated sisters were happily joining the workforce. Ladies' magazines where filled with advice on how to cajole our mates into sharing household chores or, that failing, paying someone else to do it. The vital arts of housekeeping were disparaged, demeaned and forgotten.

But what happens when there isn't enough money to go out to eat or to pay someone else to keep the house? What happens when we realize that fast food isn't healthy and we can't afford fancy restaurants? What happens when there aren't enough jobs for every adult in the household, or even for one breadwinner? How will families survive as the rules for survival are revised?

Having "survival skills" means more than knowing what bugs you can eat if you're lost in the wilderness or who to vote out on some TV "reality" show. In the real world version of Survivor our success is going to depend on cooperation and people in our community having the critical skills our ancestors acquired thousands of years ago for securing water, food, shelter, clothing, warmth and "waste management".

Imagine that there was suddenly a major natural or man-made disaster that left our entire area without electricity for an indefinite period of time, and you couldn't drive over to the local sporting goods store with your credit card to stock up on camping gear and MRE meals. Would you be able to provide even the most basic necessities for yourself and your family to survive? We may soon be facing a post-peak-oil world, where only the super-wealthy can afford gas and electricity. Will you survive? You only have to look as far as the enclaves of homeless people in our cities to realize that urban survival without financial resources is more difficult than survival in the wilderness. Not only do we need to be resourceful, we need to be cooperative.

In order to successfully engage in a Compassionate Resistance movement, we need to know that we can survive as a community without being dependent on resources the elite control, such as gasoline and processed food. We need to relearn those skills our mothers learned from their mothers: how to grow vegetables in the backyard without Miracle Grow -- how to make (or at least mend and alter) clothes" how to cook up a healthy meal with whatever ingredients we have on hand" how to collect and save water" how to compost" how to raise chickens and goats" the list goes on and on.

And there are equally important skills that our father's had that we need to learn, including carpentry and mechanical skills, to build and maintain shelter. We need to know how to adapt new, green technology to run existing apparatus, how to generate electricity from solar power, how to repair and modify cars for electric power, repair bicycles etc.

Humankind made a great step forward in recognizing that tasks and skills are not gender-specific. But the generation of men and women who knew how to get by just fine before there were supermarkets and computers is aging, and will soon be gone. If we lose their knowledge with their passing, it will be as devastating to humanity as the burning of the library of Alexandria. Fortunately, there are many creative people who are resurrecting the know-how of our grandparents and improving on it with new technology. We can grow food in less space with much less water using hydroponics" convert food scraps into super compost with vermiculture" build dome houses from raw earth with superadobe" use composting toilets to treat human waste" recycle grey water" and capture rainwater.

Let's learn and share that knowledge by converting our lawns to vegetable gardens, and converting every vacant lot into community gardens for people who don't have yards. Let's bring kitchens back to our school cafeterias, with real ovens and stoves and so we can teach our kids how to cook delicious, healthy food instead of "nuking" faux food. Let's get our communities off the grid with solar panels on every rooftop. Let's reintroduce home economics into our schools as a requirement for all students. And in doing this together-- learning from our elders and sharing what we know, and becoming more resourceful as a community by putting our skills and talents to work for the common good-- we will also be affirming our independence from fossil fuels, factory farming and consumerism. And seeing our liberation from the shackles of the dark shadows of greed, our detractors will grow silent and our movement of Compassionate Resistance will grow strong.

www.criscenzo.com

Jeeni Criscenzo is an entrepreneur, peace activist and author. She was 2006 Democratic candidate for Congress - 49th District. In 2003 she traveled around the country in an RV, writing her daily blog: CPR4Democracy. She is also a founder of (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Upwising: Compassionate Resistance - Part I: Helping Others

December 27, 2010 at 08:51:30

Tag(s): Compassion; Homelessness; Revolution

Compassionate resistance - Part I

By Jeeni Criscenzo (about the author)

opednews.com

I like to take advantage of the fact that my birthday coincides with the New Year as a time to take stock of life in general and my life in particular. Since I've recently been admonished for sounding the alarm of impending doom when people just don't want to hear it, I'm hesitant to write about my assessment of our current situation. So let's just assume, if you are reading this, that you know full-well we are facing a convergence of catastrophes and I won't go into the depressing details that inspired the following essay.

Most of my friends consider themselves progressives and many are in the throes of frustration and despair. Their hopes for peace, justice and sanity have been dashed by an onslaught of double-speak legislation and democracidal judicial rulings. They are heartbroken by family and neighbors who have bought into an Orwellian system that encourages them to speak and act against their own interest, without a shred of human compassion. Some of my friends are so exasperated that they have even been citing this sentence in the United States Declaration of Independence that justified the American Revolution:

• But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

But revolution, in the traditional sense, is not a realistic strategy for dealing with the unabashed evil we are facing today. It may have worked for colonial revolutionaries, but it would be disastrous against the brand of despotism we face today. Gun control opponents take heed - nothing you have in your gun cabinet can defend you from the high tech weapons and psyops already being wielded against us. But while outright rebellion is not a viable option, no matter what the Borg may say, RESISTANCE is NOT futile. What we need is a concerted roadmap for a new kind of resistance - an irresistible resistance that transcends the barriers of our controlled media and transforms opponents into eager, compassionate converts. So over the next seven days I am going to offer some suggestions for achieving what Swami Beyondananda would call an "upwising"- a quiet movement of compassionate resistance.

#1: HELPING OTHERS - If someone needs help, just help them, because that's the right thing to do.

Marches, demonstrations, protests, lobbying our legislators, writing letters to the editor and even blogging are becoming so ineffective that they're irrelevant. Our voices have been strategically silenced while crisis unfolds. It's time to put down the protest signs and get all hands on deck to help the folks falling overboard. Despite anything the media tries to tell us, the economy is NOT getting better for the majority of Americans. There are no jobs and when good people can't earn money or can't earn enough money to pay the mortgage or rent, and the government cuts out all the safety nets, hard-working, decent folks end up living on the sidewalks.

Take a walk downtown any evening and see people huddled under every overpass, in doorways, behind shrubbery. Open your eyes and SEE human beings, families, women and CHILDREN living on the sidewalk of YOUR town or city! Ask yourself, "Is this acceptable?" Then decide to do something to help. You don't need to help every person in the world who is falling on hard times. You can't. So don't look for someone else to tell you what needs to be done- you heart will tell you. People are so desperate that you can't make a mistake, any act of kindness is important.

Go home and gather up that camping gear you haven't used in years, extra blankets, jackets, ponchos and whatever you can spare and just take them to the places where you see homeless people. Pull over and ask if anyone needs some dry clothes or a sleeping bag. You'll be astonished the first time someone tells you that they don't need anything "but the old lady huddled up just over there needs something". All of your preconceptions about poor people will go out the window as you see first-hand, over and over, that the worse-off people are, the more they seem to care about one another. I think that might just be an aspect of human nature that the powers-that-be, who are trying to get us all fighting amongst ourselves, have overlooked. And it might be our most powerful weapon of compassionate resistance.

Strike up a conversation with the people you meet on the street. Don't be judgmental- just remember that if it wasn't for some good luck you could be them. Please don't preach or tell anyone what they should do. Be ready to listen, because people have so much bottled up and no one to tell it to. You might be the first person who ever showed an interest. Your attention is as valuable as anything else you can offer. Just making eye contact and saying "Hello!" to someone you might normally ignore, is an act of compassion. If you are worried that people will ask you for money if you acknowledge them, then have a response ready, although you will seldom need it. I respond with the question, "Are you hungry?" At least you have acknowledged their humanity.

Is that a little scary? Then start out by helping someone else who's already doing something for the less fortunate. My hope in humanity has been totally restored in the past few months as I've worked with so many local groups of people who are out there giving their time and energy to helping the poor. No one gave any of these groups an instruction book on how to do this. In every case they have started out with one or two people who just decided to do something. They didn't ask for permission; they just followed their hearts. Groups like Girls Think Tank (www.girlsthinktank.org) who distribute backpacks filled with necessities to people living on the streets and Just call Us Volunteers (www.justcallusvolunteers.org) who prepare and serve delicious and nourishing meals for the homeless, began just that way, and now have inspired many volunteers to help them. It's also how we started our organization, Amikas (www.amikas.org).

Many people I know, who help the poor, belong to a church group, but you can just as easily get your friends together to do something, or make it a family project. Compassion isn't copyrighted by any one religion or organization. I was talking to a man in the post office the other day, when it was so miserable outside, about ways we can help people living on the street. He told me that I had a good heart. Then he asked, "Are you a Christian?" with the assurance in his voice that I must be. I never thought about what I do in terms of religion, but in terms of recognizing our shared humanity. So I responded to his question with a question - "Do I have to be a Christian to have a good heart?" He thought about it for a second and then I saw the light go on. "No," he said, "You still can have a good heart." Yes! That's how you incite compassionate resistance!

My favorite group to work with is San Diego Veterans for Peace (www.sdvfp.org). They are part of a national organization of veterans who have experienced the horror of war and speak out in support of peacemaking instead of war mongering. Just last week the national Veterans for Peace organized an act of civil disobedience outside the White House that resulted in 138 activists getting arrested- and not one mention of it in the media. In my opinion, the work the San Diego Veterans for peace group is doing has a much better chance of building a resistance movement. Since over a quarter of those living on our streets are veterans, the SDVFP has been focusing on helping homeless veterans, and recently started an all out effort with their Sleeping Bag and Poncho Campaign that uses 100% of the funds they raise to purchase sleeping bags and ponchos!

My husband and I went out with them last Wednesday night during a pause in the relentless rain and wind we've been having here. Being able to give a sleeping bag to a man who was facing a night of miserable cold and rain with nothing but the clothes on his back, was as exhilarating as it was heart wrenching. SDVFP volunteers have been going out every night, even in the rain, even on Christmas night. They go to the Veteran's Winter Shelter and talk to the veterans who line up outside waiting to see if any beds will be available that night. There are always more people waiting than available beds, so a lucky few are chosen by picking numbers. Then Vets for Peace volunteers make sure the guys who don't get in the shelter have a sleeping bag and poncho and whatever else they can give them so they can get through the night.

One man whom I was talking to, had his foot all bandaged. I learned that he had diabetes and he was so happy that they didn't have to amputate his foot. He wasn't one of the people chosen to get in the shelter and I watched him limp away with his crutch and wondered how his foot was going to heal if he was living on the street. Thanks to Vets for Peace, at least this man who served our country had a sleeping bag and a poncho so wherever he ended up sleeping he'd be warm and dry, knowing some people care about him. That's what I call "Supporting Our Troops"! Go to http://www.sdvfp.org/vfp-documents/101213-projectponcho.pdf to find out how you can help support the good work this group is doing.

There are many organizations asking for your help these days. Because of the depressed economy, donations to all non-profits have plummeted just as the need for help has grown. The problem is compounded by the fact that government funds for many safety-net organizations have been cut or eliminated entirely. Right-wing pundits and conservative politicians are preaching a poisonous lie that depicts the poor as lazy or trying to get something for nothing. They think that the only reason to volunteer for anything is if it will help advance their own agenda. The best way we can counter this mean-spirited attitude is by our own example. When people see you treating the poor with respect and going out of your way to help them, they come to realize that this is the way human beings are supposed to act. Kindness IS contagious. Your efforts will attract others to join you and soon it will be the norm to be altruistic, and our Compassionate Resistance movement will grow.

In celebration of my birthday and the New Year, I will share a new suggestion for practicing Compassionate Resistance each day this week. If you think these thoughts have value, please pass them along.

www.criscenzo.com

Jeeni Criscenzo is an entrepreneur, peace activist and author. She was 2006 Democratic candidate for Congress - 49th District. In 2003 she traveled around the country in an RV, writing her daily blog: CPR4Democracy. She is also a founder of (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

A Christmas Prayer from a Born-Again Atheist

A Christmas Prayer from a Born-Again Atheist

by Myles Hoenig / December 24th, 2010

It’s easy for any born-again atheist to come down hard on religious piety and expose church hypocrisy for all its worth. But it’s that time when it’s expected to muster all one’s chits for God and bless the whole world, no exceptions.

Really?

Come next Friday, Saturday and Sunday all churches, synagogues, and mosques will be doing their usual brotherhood sermons, extolling the virtues of peace and love and welcoming the stranger into one’s home, unless they’re undocumented, of course. Our Christian Senators didn’t seem to like that part of ‘his’ teachings when it came to the Dream Act.

According to icasualties.org the “Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq” stands at 4,748. No doubt every church in America come Christmas morning, evening mass, along with the synagogues and mosques, will be praying for the safety of the thousands more yet to be killed. Perhaps many of those same churches (to refer to all the houses of worship) are leaders in the invisible anti-war movement. They’ve marched against the war, held vigils for the dead Iraqis and other civilians murdered, and pressured their members of Congress to stop funding the slaughter or to set a ‘reasonable’ time table to end the ongoing murder of people who are only defending themselves against the new Roman Empire (that’s in its final stages). Some may even be calling for an end of total occupation, but that’s certainly not a majority of them.

I’d like them to do something more than just their usual prayers for these soldiers. I’d like all of them, especially those who profess a belief in their pacifist son of God to do a little bit extra praying this time. They always say they pray for the innocents of war. So let’s go a step further. Let’s hear them pray that no bullet from any army issued rifle hits their target. Let them pray that not a single IED goes off. Let them pray that any civilian running away from any occupying soldier makes it home safely, regardless of whatever they did. Let them pray that the air transport systems that carry monsters of death and destruction never leave the airfield in the US or its bases in Europe and elsewhere, as if someone poured molasses in the engines. It’s not going to be The Day the Earth Stood Still but let’s see if our religious institutions actually have the courage to call for a real end of war, chastise (or excommunicate?) the policy makers of war, and not just do the convenient patriotic calls reminding all that God is on the side of America.

Many twisted Christians will say that Islam is a war-like religion. Some Muslims are seeing the occupation as a Crusade against Islam. (Damn that Bush for saying that, too. Really hurt the narrative of promoting freedom.) Tikunniks will say everyone’s at fault, including the Palestinians who fight against their oppressors. I wish they would all just shut the hell up and admit that they have no beliefs in the sanctity of universal life or they be true to their beliefs and really stop promoting the wars they ‘wish’ would end with half-assed prayers, as if praying to a concept has as much value as crossing one’s fingers when the lottery numbers come up.

And in case there is a supreme deity out there, I have my ticket for the Mega Millions this Friday. I’m crossing my fingers because I know I’m going to win.

Myles Hoenig is a disenchanted member of PGCEA, a teachers' union in Maryland. He also ran a Green Party gubernatorial campaign in Maryland in 2006. (Eddie Boyd. Presente!) He can be reached at: myles.hoenig@gmail.com. Read other articles by Myles.

This article was posted on Friday, December 24th, 2010 at 7:00am and is filed under Military/Militarism, Religion.

How Do We Shift Power to the People and Away from Concentrated Corporate Power?

Education, Organization and a Culture of Resistance Will Build an Independent Movement for Real Change

by Kevin Zeese / December 24th, 2010

The power of concentrated corporate capital was on display in Washington last week, as it has been all year. The incoming Chair of the Congressional committee responsible for banking regulation, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) says “my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.” And President Obama sat down with the CEOs of 20 large corporations to talk about how he could help Big Business increase their already record profits. And, in the Supreme Court, 13 of 16 business cases were ruled in favor of business interests.

These actions echo a year where Sen. Durbin complained the banks “own” the Congress and where President Obama worked with the health insurance industry to keep them in control of health care while claiming it was “reform,” and where the Supreme Court in Citizens United vastly increased corporate power in elections by allowing unlimited spending.

Corporate capital dominates the government and prevents the changes urgently needed in so many crisis issues for the nation and the world.

In the last year, through Prosperity Agenda I worked on many of these critical issues including the impact of corporate power on elections, providing health care to all Americans, restructuring finance regulation to prevent another economic collapse and reigning in spending on weapons and war. In all of these areas we had some impact, but in 2011 and beyond, much more will be needed.

Shifting power from concentrated corporate interests to the people is no easy task. It has taken years of work by those interests to gain the power that they have. It will take years of work to weaken the corporate stranglehold. The growing crises remind us of the urgency of our work and the need for a commitment to sustain and increase our efforts.

In preparing this article I looked back at a memo written by Lewis Powell two months before he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Nixon. The memo was written in 1971 at a time when the business community felt it was rapidly losing power and that the capitalist system was under severe attack. Powell, a lawyer for the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, described as “the fundamental premise” of his paper that “business and the enterprise system are in deep trouble, and the hour is late.” They saw attacks coming in the colleges, in the media, on the streets, in bookstores and from politicians. Everywhere they looked they were under attack and on the verge of total defeat – the end of free markets and crony capitalism.

The purpose of the Powell memo, written to the head of the Chamber of Commerce, was to lay out a plan to restore and build corporate power. Powell laid out a plan that is instructive for those of us who want to shift power from concentrated capital to the people, who want to see a democratized economy in which people have greater control of their economic lives and are more represented in both the economy and government.

Powell’s plan was a long-term one built primarily on education and organization. In response to a “broadly based and consistently pursued” attack on corporate power, Powell wrote “independent and uncoordinated activity by individual corporations, as important as this is, will not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.” He urged action in universities, with speaker’s bureaus, in publishing, influencing the media and working in the courts, as well as in electoral politics.

We also have a long term plan to educate, organize and unite our efforts:

• We’ve used education in writing, media and video. We strive for but do not rely on the corporate media, which is also part of the problem, to cover our work. We also recognize that too often they are part of the problem. We make our own media and work with the independent media.
• We’ve reached out to allied organizations and allied movements in order to help develop consistent and coordinated actions. And we’ve asked our thousands of members to take actions in unison so our voices are multiplied.
• We’ve used the courts and instruments of government to challenge the illegal actions of the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads seeking investigation and prosecution of their abuses in the 2010 elections. See more here, and here. We’ve done the same when we seek corporate responsibility for companies like Massey Energy and their CEO Don Blankenship when 29 miners were killed in West Virginia (more here) and were pleased when he resigned.

While education and organization are critical ingredients to bringing change, this is a slow process and many of the issues the nation faces are urgent. This is why we also pursue acts of protest and resistance. We did this in the health care debate and most recently in the anti-war movement. Resistance has always been an ingredient for bringing change whether it was people sitting in at segregated lunch counters, or blacks sitting in the white section of the bus, or Cindy Sheehan camping outside of George Bush’s ranch. In the next year we will see a growing culture of resistance in the United States.

Other acts of resistance are seen around the release of documents by WikiLeaks. The reaction demonstrated corporations and the government working together to block the American people from knowing what is being done in our name. VISA, Mastercard, Bank of America, PayPal, Amazon and various financial institutions stopped processing funds for WikiLeaks at the request of the government. But the truth is getting out and we now know what the government is doing in our name and must take action to stop it. Knowing the truth and not acting is complicity. More and more Americans are acting. We see resistance in the more than 1,000 mirror sites of WikiLeaks, in the more than 100,000 people who downloaded the WikiLeaks “insurance policy” and were prepared to release documents if Julian Assange were harmed. It is seen in Americans organizing for their right to know, and to reaffirm Freedom of the Press. We are organizing under the banner WikiLeaksIsDemocracy.org, with a petition signed by notables and now by thousands. Join us and urge others to as well.

It is going to take education, organization and resistance as part of a persistent independent movement for political change. Those who want real change achieve it by voting for parties dominated by the donations of corporate executives. Voting for corporate parties re-enforces corporate power. We need independent electoral activity along with an independent movement and independent media to shift the power to the people.

There is a growing movement for real paradigm shifting change. It is a slow process that is accelerating and 2011 promises to be a milestone year. Please join us in our efforts at www.ProsperityAgenda.US. We need all Americans who want a democratized economy where power is shifted to the people joining us.

Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters for Peace. Read other articles by Kevin, or visit Kevin's website.

This article was posted on Friday, December 24th, 2010 at 7:00am and is filed under Activism, Capitalism, Corporate Globalization, Democrats, Disinformation, Obama, Solidarity, Wikileaks.