The following is an
update from Suzanne Taylor and TheConversation.org Making Sense of
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Featured Conversation: Joe Simonetta, Senior Editor of the
World Business Academy and author of Seven Words That Can Change the
World
Suzanne's
comments: Here's a behind the scenes peek into the writing and dissemination
of Dennis Kucinich's widely circulated piece, via
some conversation with his host when he wrote it,
Southern California ADA president, Lila Garrett. We're talking about how to turn us gadflies -- now energized by Kucinich,
Michael Moore, and the first heroine of the
progressive dissent, Barbara Lee -- into a mighty
force. That's the thread of the new posts, which are permeated by the advocacy we are making for Joe Simonetta's ideas, as expressed
in "Seven Words That Can Change the World." As Joe
says: "We don't want to start a movement. We want to
communicate a belief system that transcends all movements." This is a conversation for all of us -- THE one we
need to be having. If you have any ideas for where to
from here, please have a say.
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Column from Arianna Huffington: Hollywood Sends A
Message: Sign the Mine Ban Treaty -- March 27, 2002
Full
column: http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/032702.htmlSuzanne's
Comments: At best, this is an
unbearably sad prime example of the folly of war. How can it continue to be so
ordinary? And how can Bush turn our backs on at least doing what we can about
it? "The buried bomblets claim a new victim every 22 minutes -- that's 24,000
casualties a year. And of those 24,000, 95 percent are civilians. Even more
horrifying, 50 percent of those maimed or killed are children...it will take
over 150 years to get rid of them all. And that's if no new mines are laid.
Unfortunately, for every mine that is removed, a staggering 25 new mines are
being laid."
Other quotes
drawn from the column:
As it currently stands, the U.S. has
stubbornly refused to join the 142 nations that have signed the 1997 Mine Ban
Treaty forbidding the use, stockpiling and production of anti-personnel
landmines...
What makes landmines so repugnant is their lethal and
long-lived promiscuity -- they don't care who they destroy. Once sown in the
earth, they hold their grudges long after the soldiers who planted them have
departed and long after the conflicts that seemed to necessitate their use have withered. Their bloody harvest can sprout
days, months, years, even decades after they have been laid.
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Other additions to our Quotes
Section [http://www.theconversation.org/index.html#quotes]:
[Thanks to Listmembers Eugenia Butler and Arjuna da Silva
for sending this piece.]
There was no genuine war after Sept.
11...A huge crime was committed, the biggest mass murder ever seen directly by
hundreds of millions all over the globe. A vast police action, backed by
emergency powers, to uncover and destroy any network of the guilty -- an action
primarily to prevent a recurrence -- would be a rational, responsible
strategy.
A war, on the other hand, requires an enemy that can roll over,
declare it is ready to surrender and sign a peace treaty. Victory over
"terrorism" is not possible in the absence of such an enemy, and the alternative
-- the extermination of always-changing, always-new groups using violence to
attain their ends -- can never be achieved.
...while the regimes of Iraq
and North Korea are truly evil, any comparison to the threat of the Axis powers
who menaced the civilized world during World War II is the product of minds that
have lost themselves in political opportunism of unspeakable
indecency...
In all the sadness and anger after Sept. 11, the world
expressed a hope that the tragedy might lead to a serious rethinking of
America's political and economic purposes. To support this hope is not to
endorse the notion that Americans "had it coming" -- of course, no American
action in the world has made the terrorist attacks morally comprehensible. But
that does not excuse Americans for failing to rethink national purposes in a
world that they dominate.
To Keep
a Population In Line, Wage Perpetual War Against a Vague Enemy
Karel Van
Wolferen
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0310-01.htm
While environmentalists have
slammed the White House national energy plan for not doing enough to promote
renewable energy, the Bush administration found those government research
programs useful in paying the bill for printing copies of the 170-page plan. The
administration took money from the Energy Department's solar and renewable
energy and energy conservation budgets to pay for the cost of printing its
national energy plan.
Documents released under court order by the Energy
Department this week revealed that $135,615 was spent from the DOE's solar,
renewables, and energy conservation budget to produce 10,000 copies of the White
House energy plan released last May. Another $1,317.39 was spent for producing
16 "briefing boards" used by administration officials to illustrate and explain
the White House energy plan...
Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed
the White House energy task force, criticized environmentalists for relying too
much on renewables and conservation to solve the nation's energy
problems.
Bush Tapped
Solar Energy Funds to Print Energy Plan
Tom Doggett,
Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/03/03292002/reu_46809.asp
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COMMENTS FROM OUR
LISTMEMBERS
Re past Updates:
"Brilliant
stuff. So aligned with my thinking and doing, especially with the
Conversation Cafes [http://www.conversationcafe.org]." Vicki
Robin, President, New Road Map Foundation [http://www.newroadmap.org]
and Co-Author, Your Money or Your Life
"We, the writers of these [Seven Words] testimonials
[http://www.theconversation.org/testimonials.html], are part of an emerging
network. We're self-organizing the natural way - by resonance." Critt
Jarvis [http://www.thurisa.org]
"Great selections! Thanks so much! Yes!
Moore, Kucinich, Lee. Who else? Let's name them. My friend John Sears had the
vision that we would 'elect' or select a board of advisors from among those well
known (or movers and shakers behind the scenes) who can be trusted to lead a
better way." Arjuna da Silva [http://www.earthaven.org/culture/Eventdetails/consensus.htm#AdS]
Re Arianna Huffington's Poverty, the President and the
Pest [http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/032502.html]:
"Re Poverty in the USA, as
a non-American, looking in from the outside, I have always been appalled by, and
outspoken about, the fact that America would send billions of dollars overseas
-- at the drop of a hat, with a multi-trillion dollar deficit -- to any third
world country that asked, and yet at 'home' children were hungry, illiterate,
living in sub standard shacks, and
people were sleeping in cars or worse." Jeanne
Blum, Author, Woman Heal Thyself [http://www.womanhealthyself.com]
"It would be truly good news if Bush (and his advisors)
did understand the need to address poverty world wide...but I am afraid if we
look at some hard facts we soon realize that with the prevailing expertise it
would not help. I say this because the root cause of poverty is closely
aligned to the health of the environment. Poor land always leads to poverty and
violence as I have outlined before.
"Currently, in the U.S., good people donate over $200
billion a year to charitable organizations to address social and environmental
ills. Despite this massive annual investment, the situation is not improving but
getting worse...If what we are doing is not working, I am afraid doing more of
it does not lead to success...The whole situation becomes completely different
wherever people actually address the root cause of such problems -- as the Bush
people could do easily if only there was some way of getting new thinking onto
their radar. I am attaching a talk that I will be giving shortly to the
Albuquerque Lawyers Club [http://www.theconversation.org/savoryspeech2.html] in which I have tried to spell it out
simply." Allan Savory, Founder,
Savory Center for Holistic Management [http://www.holisticmanagement.org]
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