Compilation by Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans from CODEPINK Excerpts Forward by Alice Walker Pg XII last para. “All the information is in. If our species does not outgrow its tendency to fight wars, we can kiss all we have created, and ourselves, good-bye. To bring children into the world at all, given the state of things, seems not only self-indulgent but cruel. And it was of the children I thought, partly because there, right across from us, as we sang in front of the White House, were huge photographs of dismembered fetuses held by an antiabortion group whose leader began to harangue us through a bullhorn. He called us traitors and murderers and accused us of nagging.” Pg XIII “… I felt the sweetness of all feelings: peace.” (while protesting outside of the White House and about to be arrested) “I realized that at the root of the peace cradling me were not only Einstein and other ancestors who told us the truth, but especially Martin Luther King. I had followed him faithfully since I was in my teens; his fearless, persistent struggle against injustice mesmerized me. Perfect love casts out fear. That is what he had. And that is, ultimately, what the sea of pink symbolized. We were women and children who loved ourselves in the form of Iraqi women and children because we knew that to love ourselves as humans means to love ourselves as all humans. We understood that whatever we did to stop war, we did it not for the ‘other’ but for a collective us.” Pg XIV Authors Note “I wrote this essay as a thank-you to Medea Benjamin, who asked if I would write an op-ed piece about a CODEPINK-led protest on March 8, 2003. It was submitted to numerous newspapers, including the New York Times, but it was never published until now.” Stop the Next War NOW Pg XV Preface – Jodie Evans writing about Medea Benjamin “Medea envisioned a global uprising of women—Americans and Saudis, Muslims and Jews—linking arms and demanding that men stop the killing.” Pg 29 Eve Ensler “The new paradigm will not be about conquering people, but about collaborating with people. It will not be invading people, it will be inviting people. Not occupying, but offering, inspiring, and serving people. In the new paradigm, there will be time to feel, to heal, to grieve. Unexpressed grief often becomes violence. Experienced grief becomes wisdom. As a nation, instead of grieving over September 11, we retaliated. We bombed.” “Real power is about generosity. Real power is about being bigger than revenge. And it requires every part of our being to say, I’m not going to hit you back. I’m going to take a breath and find what within me is larger and has the power to enlighten.” Pg 41 Elise Boulding “It is socialization, the process by which society rears its children and shapes the attitudes and behaviors of its members of all ages, that determines how peacefully or violently individuals and institutions handle the problems that every human community faces in the daily work of maintaining itself.” Pg 50 Catherine Ingram, internationally known dharma teacher and co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA “Buddha, Jesus, Saint Teresa of Avila, Lao-tsu, Gandhi, King, Aung San Suu Kyi, Dalai Lama - messengers of non-violence.” “Those people who have most inspired us have always offered messages of love and nonviolence.” “It is now our time to shine in the darkness…” “We sometimes make the conceptual mistake of thinking that people whose message was love and peace belonged on the whole to former times. We think of those people as legends in a historical context, or we assume that they were from traditional cultures whose values accommodated such quaint view. But what if those lives were not so much an example of where we have historically been as of where we need to go? Not of how we once were but how we might become? What if humankind is being compelled to evolve into peaceful animals, or else face extinction?” Pg 55 Phyllis Bennis “…it opened my eyes to the potential of enlisting the aid of the most influential individuals in the world in a moment of global crisis. “So I went out on stage again in front of half a million people and said, ‘If anyone believes that these kinds of demonstrations don’t matter, listen up.’ I read the AP story and the crowd erupted.” Pg 59 Leslie Cagan National Coordinator, UP&J “We have to create a global people’s movement that is firmly grounded at the local level and iscoordinated at both the national and international levels.” Pg 62 Frida Berrigan “…about how to create a lifestyle that is opposed to war in every way, so that there is no going home at the end of the march to our ‘normal lives.’” Pg 72 Diane Wilson Mother of five “When we say we don’t want war, those can’t just be words. Stopping a war takes a real commitment, and that means putting ourselves at risk. We have to pursue peace as aggressively as others want to make war.” Pg 74 Becky Bond, creative producer for Working Assets “…online protest RSVP form from Working Assets” “What we learned in the process was that the movement had the potential to be much broader—you just had to reach out and ask people to come. And you needed to let them march under their own banners, not just a few themes decided by a committee of conveners.” Pg 76 “…the difference between stopping the Iraq invasion and stopping the next wars, may mean helping less on left politics as usual and more on creating and executing a plausible play for peace.” Pg 80 Beth Osnes Author and founding member of Mothers Acting Up “…awakened within me a feeling of solidarity with mothers across economic and national boundaries.” “MAU is a movement to mobilize the gigantic political strength of mothers to ensure the health, education, and safety of every child, not just a privileged few.” “I also like the fact that this work feels constructive rather than reactionary, unlike much political activism I’ve encountered. I, like many other women, recoil from confrontational, negative approaches to politics, so this celebratory and positive alternative feels like a comfortable home for my budding activism. Anger can’t sustain my commitment or interest, but the belief in every child’s right to health, education and safety can.” Pg 84 Starhawk, author “When we stand for peace as women, we are not doing it to make a case that we’re victims but to represent a different vision of strength. The unique power in women- initiated and women-led actions comes not from excluding men—most of these actions welcome men as participants—but through embracing the joy and visionary potential that arise when we come together as women to defend the life-sustaining values that we hold dear.” “Force, punishment, and violence are patriarchy’s answer to conflicts and social problems. Patriarchy finds its ultimate expression in war.” “To counter the rabid cries for war, we need not just women’s voices but raucous, incautious, feminist voices—for feminism allows us to analyze and pull apart patriarchy, the constellation of values, ideas, and beliefs that rein-forces male control over women.” “Real security can come only when we weave a global web of mutual aid and support. As we make larger connections and take action together, we must assert what we as women know to be true: compassion is not weakness, and brutality is not strength.” Pg 92 Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO of Global Fund for Women, a U.S. based grant- making organization “To women’s organizations in the rest of the world, the women’s movement here in the United States appears to be so disconnected from an understanding that peace and security ought to be central to a women’s-rights struggle.” “There is much work to be done to strengthen the notion of a global women’s movement. I think that many women, particularly in the developing world, do not see women in the West as understanding or supporting their struggles. Whether we can stop the next war will really depend, to a great extent, on our ability to build strong connections with women in the rest of the world. Because they can’t do it without us.” “The big question for women here is, can we get to a point where we see ourselves as so strongly allied with the international women’s movement that we make it a priority to push for those outcomes.” “What if we had a huge convening of social movements to put pressure on our governments, just by pure force and presence? I know we have the capability. Recall February 15, 2003, when the world stood still in protest against the Iraq war.” Pg 94 Neela Marikkar, a Sri Lankan businesswoman “…our campaign was a peaceful demonstration.” “We were able to marginalize the extreme voices and empower the silent majority—the moderate voices—by organizing this very simple demonstration. You just had to come out of your building. You didn’t have to hold cards or protest. It was a very gentle display of solidarity.” Pg 96 Sumaya Farhat-Naser, Palestinian, cofounder of the Jerusalem Center for Women, and Gila Svirsky, Israeli, cofounder of Bat Shalom and Coalition of Women for Peace “Although the news has not yet reached the international media, we would like the world to know that women in Israel and Palestine are ready to make peace.” The women’s peace movement in Palestine and in Israel believes that the time has come to end the bloodshed, to lay down our weapons and our fears. We refuse to accept more warfare in our lives, our communities, our nations. We refuse to go along with the fear. We refuse to give in to the violence. We refuse to be enemies.” Pg 114 Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said, “We must also win the war of ideas and make the case that true security is possible only when the full range of human rights—civil and political as well as economic, social, and cultural—is guaranteed for all people.” Go to Page 2 Stop the Next War Now |
PEACE and LOVE
How beautiful the world is when we live and work together in peace.
Global Strategy of Nonviolence
Mother Theresa said, “Peace begins with a smile.”
Welcome! A Global Strategy of Nonviolence
FOR the CHILDREN A World-Wide Unity Campaign
A Strategy to Bring Peace For the Children and Stop War
FOR the CHILDREN A World-Wide Unity Campaign
A Strategy to Bring Peace For the Children and Stop War
| (GS of NV) |
| GUIDELINES In 3 years, we the people, can change the world. PLAN ALL 3 PHASES PHASE ONE: Mobilize, in every village, town, and city,in every country! Select Demands and Deadlines One year awareness campaign Starting Event September 11, 2021 +23 scheduled events |
PEOPLE POWER The People must be HEARD, the Moderate Voice We want the children to see an overt exhibit of nonviolence. |
| PHASE TWO: Conflict Resolution and Disarmament PHASE THREE: Programs For the Children |
Current Status Support Information Links |
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