Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 18:21:38 -0400 To: •••@••.••• From: Bill Ellis <•••@••.•••> Subject: Deep Peace At 10:59 AM -0300 7/19/98, Jan Slakov wrote: >It is to be assumed that all of us on this list advocate using non-violence >in our social change work. Jan Thanks for the post on nonviolence and the reference to TRANET's web page on the nonviolence.net. I think we all should take part in the peace brigades you mention. I was myself partly responsible for the contact in Chiapas when I was there and saw the pending violence there some years ago. But, in spite of all the anti nuke, anti military, anit crime, and non violence activity going on I'm still having trouble finding literature on "peace." That is, what is it made Gandhi, King and others the peaceFULL (not only peace loving) people they were? And what made Stalin, Hitler, and others the violent people they were? And, how do we move society in the direction of "deep peace?" I have alway been amazed at the Quakers I've met. They seem to be endowed with a peacefulness which surpasses my understanding. Somehow they all, or at least most that I have met, live and breathe peace. I, and most of my nonviolence colleagues, merely work for peace and nonviolence. It is not as deeply ingrained in our beings as in others. How do we gain real "deep peace?" And how do we build it into our social fabric? I'd like any references to a positive "deep peace" that others on this net might forward *************************************************** Jan's comments: July 21 Big questions you end your message with. I would like to start the discussion with a few comments and hope others will add more. Perhaps an essential thing about the "deep peace" of Quakers is a core belief that "there is that of God" in each of us. I once went to a residential Quaker school to teach and learn for about a month. I remember being struck by how EVERYONE was listened to, including a boy I tended to write off as being "dumb". The teachers especially would always be able to take what he said and use it to carry the group forward. I also remember that in an exercise we did to observe and improve group performance, I noticedone of the teachers said she agreed with what someone had said, not "with so-and-so". A fine distinction, which is related to being able to "hate the crime but not the criminal"; being able to separate the person from what they do or say. This is, I think, an essential skill to develop if we are to be able to act fairly towards all the different people we come in contact with. I am not a Quaker so I hope someone who is might be able to correct any mistakes I may have made and maybe to elaborate further. I also urge any of you who would like to comment on how we can move society towards "deep peace" to do so. I think these questions are central to doing what needs doing: build a livable world (including vibrant democracy) by living it now. As Richard has pointed out, our means are to embody our ends. ******************************************************************************** Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 14:19:13 -0700 (PDT) To: •••@••.••• From: •••@••.••• (John Lowry) Subject: Re: some reader comments & dialog rkm wrote: >... >We need to break through the barriers of `right & left', talk >people-to-people, and articulate a different paradigm of our situation and >what needs to be done about it. > >The question of tariffs, I suggest is a technical one; tariffs can be >useful, depending on your goals for economic development. The strategic >question is whether nations will have sufficient sovereignty to _have an >economic policy. The doctrine of `free trade', as enforced by IMF policies >and GATT agreements offer some temporary benefits in terms of cheaper >goods, but in the long run it reduces all nations to colonial status, and >leaves economic (and environmental, and labor conditions, and social >programs, etc etc) policy making in the hands of giant TNC corporations and >their bureaucracies. > >all the best, >rkm I think a practical priority for actual economic re-form is the food supply. Trade in food is fine, so long as the political unit (bioregion?) is self-sufficient in the basics. Toward this objective, I suggest transforming the US foodstamp program into a cash cow for bioregionalism by paying grocers to purchase good, basic food, produced as locally as possible, and distributing it to their regular customers for free. I don't know if anyone else here has applied for food stamps, but, when really down and out, I found the experience so degrading I went hungry for a while instead. I suppose if that level of poverty had been a more permanent condition for me, I would have had no choice but to suffer the damage. And food stamps generate a large measure of political resentment in our ritual gatherings at the supermarket check-out line. We can eliminate these socially damaging experiences with a political program that does more than just take care of the needy. We can strengthen the bonds between us by acknowledging our extraordinary wealth, and by celebrating our prosperity with the gesture of free basic food -- for everyone. While we have overcome the state of economic nature our ancestors called "scarcity," there are other states of nature that can threaten our well being, and we can pay more careful attention to those threats if we enjoy a fair measure of the benefit from our societal accomplishment in creating material abundance. A program of bioregional self-sufficient food supplies, to which everyone has equal claim in extremis, would be seen as a useful state action by those not now on foodstamps, and it would be a postivie, inclusive gesture toward those now seen as not "contributing" to society. John ***************************************************************************** Jan's comments: Yes, bioregions ought to be self-sufficient in the basics! This is a part of what it means to pursue security through non-violence. The more a community is self-sufficient in the basics, the less it will need to protect its interests elsewhere through violence and the less vulnerable it will be to attemps to cut of its supplies. The food stamp idea sounds great; it would be a worthy one for a group to work on. You might be interested to see what Herman Daly and John Cobb, Jr. wrote in their 1989 book, _For the Common Good, on the topic of limiting inequality (rather than striving for absolute equality). They advocate a negative income tax, an idea supported by Milton Friedman in _Capitalism and Freedom (1962). Now, before all of you write in to tell me what a dunderhead Milton F. is, let's remember to separate between the person and what the person is saying! (Friedman does not get an easy ride in Daly and Cobb's book. It has been one of my "landmark" books; helped me realize how our economic theory evolved (or regressed!) to where it is now and what kinds of things could be done to make economics more sensible.) all the best, Jan
