Posted by babka at 170.215.212.169 on January 15, 2003 at 02:28:02:
Hope you made it through the day, Gabe.
Sorry about this, Riley, and you upright dearhearts who don't see it
this way. Mea culpa in advance, and pass it on all who can.....this just
in....
**********************************
Dear Citizen of the World.
We have thirteen days to reverse the movement toward war.
We can establish roads to peace if all of us do it together in our own
unique ways. All of us, everywhere, on the entire planet. We can do
it. This is a call for radical individualism within radical cooperation.
We can find the roads to peace in fifteen days if we do it together.
A small junta cannot hold the entire globe captive to its wishes.
Everyone on the planet knows that no one can escape the individual
and environmental consequences of the weapons, such as depleted
uranium, that the United States has already used in Afghanistan and
the last Gulf war.
There is a great blessing inherent in our common jeopardy that leads
directly to a common benefit. There is a great blessing inherent in
knowing that we share a common jeopardy with each other, the
animals and the creatures of the natural world that can lead directly to
our common flourishing and survival.
It is possible, directly and indirectly, to involve every citizen in the
world on behalf of peace. Each individual finding his or her way to
say No to these wars motivated by apocalyptic delusions and lust for
oil and power. Each individual finding his or her way to say Yes to
concerted efforts to bring a foundation of peacemaking to the world.
Each individual finding exactly the right activity. A profound alliance
between strategic activities and religious and spiritual invocations
and the range of possibilities in-between.
This letter does not suggest any particular plan or form of action. But
I am hoping that we can circulate this call so widely that everyone is
brought into the activity on behalf of peace. We can, if we extend
ourselves, reach almost everyone on the planet and partake of his or
her knowledge, wisdom and unique vision.
Across the globe, in human history there have been so many effective
activities undertaken by people in times of crises on behalf of peace,
we cannot articulate them all. But all of them are appropriate to this
moment. We need to use all of them and new ones as they come
mind as we create this global council with each other. Each one of
us, acting alone or in concert with each other in ways that accord with
our minds, imaginations, hearts, spirits and souls.
Actually this is already occurring; we are being asked to make it
universal. Unexpected agreements are surfacing in the United
States between Republicans and Democrats, Christians, Muslims,
Jews, members of every spiritual tradition, progressives and
conservatives, religious and political leaders, all equally alarmed by
the threats to democracy from Homeland Security and the Patriot Act,
and by the Administrations recalcitrant insistence on pursuing a
pre-emptive war without the support of the United Nations, a war that
many in the Pentagon, CIA and military oppose. A war that will
undoubtedly inflame terrorist retaliation and so involve even more
American and civilian causalities throughout the world.
Mobilizations for peace are occurring everywhere on the globe,
marches and boycotts, conscientious objection, peace rallies and
global prayer circles, rituals and ceremonies, pressures and
influences, even as several British workers have already refused to
transport munitions headed to the Gulf. We can join with the kin of
American troops to protect the young people being sent to fight in Iraq
so that they will not die there or return afflicted with the mysterious
disabilities that have affected such great numbers of American
veterans recently. Mothers for Peace and the Mothers of the
Disappeared, Women in Black alongside other activities of liberation
have set peaceful precedents for us. We can partake of their wisdom
and strategies. In the history of the planet, every people have stories
and traditions that speak of the success of making peace and the
possibility of overcoming oppression. We must call on these
histories now.
We have thirteen days. It is not too short a time if we extend
ourselves to each other and do it together. If we do whatever we
would do if our lives depended upon it, which they do.
In the fifteen days given to us, we can bring peace and then set out
from there.
-Deena Metzger