--- On Wed, 12/30/09, Richard Mabion <rma...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
From: Richard Mabion <rma...@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: Winter solstice message
Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 1:42 PM
Ann,
If I was near you, I would hug you and give you a big kiss on your cheek. I am about to go nuts trying to raise the money to pay for the conference. It seems like my resources are all
refusing to respond. So you can imagine how I must have felt, when I open my P.O. Box and found that check for $1,000.00. Both me and Fus'Kari screamed.
God knows we have put together a great conference, made up with some of the best environmentalist Kansas City has to offer. Granted we don't have any of those people who are employed by an environmental concerned companies or organizations, the so called cream of the crop group, but we have real people, who truly care about the American public. Not as a job or a responsibility, but as a way of life.
We started out
with a $15,000.00 budget. We are only $3,000.00 from reaching out goal, and not one of the major environmental agencies, organizations or businesses in the Kansas City region has given us a dime. They are still refusing to contribute , but have no problem spending their time trying to figure out a ways to get paid from the Stimulus money.
We have our local social organizations designing ways to take money from low-income people, and getting paid to teach our unemployed how to fill out applications, and dress for a job interview.
Yet some of those same organization get paid (write a grant) to hold workshops, and then charge between $200.00 to $600.00 for registration. Then all they do is preach to the choir. Well we still charge $1.00 a day for registration, and depend on organization like yours to help us make this a reality. As the list
below shows, our supporters all deal with real people, not people who simply give them a head count for the next grant application.
When Germans decided they had suffer enough not being able to associate with their family members who got trapped behind the wall, they tore the wall down. As your check show, people like us, who spend of lives working for the salvation of the American public, are beginning to get to that point,. which is what you contribution shows.
America was form on the principle of, "together we stand, divided we fall". We who are making this Breaking The Silence conference a reality, are like the original patriots. Lets work to end the social agencies who only get paid for thinking. We need to spend that money on the American working public. Stop paying people to think, and lets pay them to get their hands dirty.
Peace, and thanks for stepping up to make our effort
a reality.
Richard Mabion
www.breakingthesilence.us
913-481-9920.
I don't know how many people have seen the attached, but I plan on sending out one of these until the day of the conference. A promo along with sponsor and vendor information.
--- On Wed, 12/30/09, Ann Suellentrop <annsu...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Ann Suellentrop <annsu...@gmail.com>
Subject: Winter solstice message
Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 10:56 AM
Dear ANA
friends:
Winter solstice 2009
Winter solstice: a time of turning, from the cold of winter's long
nights toward the light and warmth of spring's renewal.
Solstice as metaphor:
Thomas Berry, the visionary Catholic priest who died earlier this
year, recognized that we humans are now engaged in a "great turning"
from a violating, industrial, egocentric, consumer culture to one of
ecological attentiveness. Having treated Earth as a resource for
plunder and a garbage dump, we can now see that, in Berry's words,
"our own well-being can be achieved only through the well-being of the
entire natural world about us." In general we've been too remote
from Earth's various creatures to hear their stories. "The time has
come, however, when we will listen, or we will die." Ecological
responsibility is not an option; it's a necessity.
I've been working throughout the year with Rocky Mountain Peace &
Justice Center colleagues to gather artists and technical specialists
for "Rocky Flats: A Call to Guardianship." The purpose of this
"great turning" project is to make the contaminated site of the
defunct Rocky Flats nuclear bomb factory a case study in shifting from
the polluting risk-based culture we have inherited to a culture of
earth democracy in which we humans act on behalf of other beings
affected by human activities. We seek to provide a concrete example of
ecological caretaking for radioactively contaminated sites elsewhere.
We counter government plans to turn much of the Rocky Flats site into
a wildlife refuge open for public recreation. If you'd like to support
or to participate in this unprecedented work, let me know. We expect
to hold major public events in 2010 and 2011.
Politics is always about
relations of power. The great turning involves a shift of power away
from hierarchies and pyramids to a sharing that is rooted deep in the
veins and vessels of all earth's creatures. But let me jump to
politics as conventionally conceived. At lunch recently with a friend
who's a WW II conscientious objector I asked for his take on President
Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech. He said it was a good speech but he
didn't agree with Obama's justification for the war in Afghanistan. I
recalled that about a century after Emperor Constantine converted to
Christianity and made it the religion of the Roman Empire ¬ turning
the pacifist religion of Jesus into a religion of coercion - the
theologian Augustine of Hippo came to the aid of the empire with the
doctrine of just war. He laid down certain principles that must be
followed for a war to qualify as just. What the US is doing in
Afghanistan and next door in Pakistan (think drones and Blackwater)
patently fails to meet Augustine's conditions of proportionality,
probability of success, attacking only combatants, and so on. If Obama
can justify using armed force to achieve his ends, any other party,
including Osama bin Laden can do the same, and does.
In embracing the outmoded concept of just war, Obama denigrated two of
the prophetic figures of the 20th century, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin
Luther King, Jr. In the night of violence these two practiced the
non-violating politics of the future. Both showed a profound
understanding of power when they enabled the disadvantaged to realize
that they could put into practice the power they already possess.
Their methods spread quickly to every continent in the 20th century.
The record of perfecting the technology of violence in this most
violent of all human centuries ever is matched by global experiments
in nonviolent action.
In Oslo as earlier in Prague Obama raised the hope of finally ridding
the planet of nuclear weapons, the deadliest of human inventions. But
it's not possible to get rid of nuclear weapons while adhering to just
war theory. If I or you or any group or any country can justify war on
others - can kill with a good conscience - then it stands to reason
that some who fight will want the biggest stick available. And since
the 1940s this has been nuclear weapons, the only real weapons of mass
destruction. So if the US is justified in waging war in Afghanistan or
Pakistan or perhaps against Iran or North Korea, why shouldn't leaders
of those countries want their own big stick, their own nuclear bombs?
If we continue to rely on weapons, others will do the same, and some
likely will want the big one.
It's clear on many fronts that we're now dealing with the fate of the
earth and the destiny of our species. We thus need to realize that
conflict along the way is a revelatory moment that shows what needs
attention. We must pay attention, especially to our adversary. We need
to learn what moves him or her or them, and we need to let them know
what moves us. This can only happen in an atmosphere free of threat
and harm. Now we're back to Gandhi and King and others past and
present who practice the discipline of non-violating action. In the
depths of the wintering of our souls reside the seeds of renewal. The
turning cannot happen without us.
Love, joy, peace,
LeRoy
(image from Rini Templeton)
************************************************
LeRoy Moore, Ph.D.
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center
P. O. Box 1156, Boulder, Colorado 80306-1156 USA
E-mail address: leroy...@earthlink.net
|
|
