On Imperishable Honor and Glory

by

Abby Zimet, staff writer

Korea 1950. Photo by Al Chang/AP

The world's leading war maker marks another Memorial Day, ostensibly a day of prayer for peace that too often betrays those "not fallen but pushed" in our ceaseless wars. Among others, Howard Zinn long cited the day's "hypocritical patriotism" and urged, "Let us not set out on the same old drunken ride to death." Fiercely echoing him long before was MarkTwain and Siegfried Sassoon; later have been  the veterans of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. Perhaps the most anguished call "for these who die like cattle" came from World War One's Wilfred Owen, killed a week before the Armistice. In his "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "Dulce et Decorum Est," thought to have been written between  October 1917 and March 1918, Owen savagely took on the "old lie" that, in the Latin source, "It is sweet and right to die for your country."

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, 
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... 
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory, 
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.

Please go here for the original article: http://www.commondreams.org/further/2015/05/24/imperishable-honor-and-glory

Stephen Levine: The More We Love

The more we love, 

the more real we become. 

 

- Stephen Levine

 

Thích Nhất Hạnh: The Roots of War and Peace

We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come. 

― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

 

Martin Luther King, Jr.: Spiritual Death

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense 

than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. 

~ Martin Luther King, Jr., 

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967

 

Martin Luther King, Jr.: A True Revolution Of Values

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. 

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Howard Zinn: To Be Hopeful In Bad Times

TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
 

― Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn: There Is No Flag Large Enough

How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?
 

 Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. 

Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of 

 leaders… and millions have been killed because of this obedience…

Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face 

of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. 

Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… 

(and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.
 

  There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.

― Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn: Whom Will We Honor Memorial Day?

Over the years, it has become imperative for me to have the courage and commitment and caring to question and think critically, to not believe everything I think, to be open to seeing with new eyes and hearing with open mind, to learn how to discern who is a voice for truth and integrity and a higher good - and who is not, to recognize who are the visionaries in these times and times past who are able to counter the unhealthy messages and brainwashing that we are awash in here in America, and to imagine different stories to live by - ones which affirm that all life is Sacred. Howard Zinn is certainly among those whose voice, courage, integrity, and wisdom remains of critical importance and value for us all. Another world is possible. 

Peace & blessings ~ Molly

Article. By Howard Zinn. 1976.
Essay urging readers to rethink Memorial Day, who we honor, 

and what resources we prioritize.

Howard Zinn as World War II bombardier

By Howard Zinn

Published on June 2, 1976 in the Boston Globe and republished in The Zinn Reader with the brief introduction below.

Memorial Day will be celebrated … by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments.

In 1974, I was invited by Tom Winship, the editor of the Boston Globe, who had been bold enough in 1971 to print part of the top secret Pentagon Papers on the history of the Vietnam War, to write a bi-weekly column for the op-ed page of the newspaper. I did that for about a year and a half. The column below appeared June 2, 1976, in connection with that year’s Memorial Day. After it appeared, my column was canceled.

* * * * *

Memorial Day will be celebrated as usual, by high-speed collisions of automobiles and bodies strewn on highways and the sound of ambulance sirens throughout the land.

It will also be celebrated by the display of flags, the sound of bugles and drums, by parades and speeches and unthinking applause.

It will be celebrated by giant corporations, which make guns, bombs, fighter planes, aircraft carriers and an endless assortment of military junk and which await the $100 billion in contracts to be approved soon by Congress and the President.

There was a young woman in New Hampshire who refused to allow her husband, killed in Vietnam, to be given a military burial. She rejected the hollow ceremony ordered by those who sent him and 50,000 others to their deaths. Her courage should be cherished on Memorial Day. There were the B52 pilots who refused to fly those last vicious raids of Nixon’s and Kissinger’s war. Have any of the great universities, so quick to give honorary degrees to God-knows-whom, thought to honor those men at this Commencement time, on this Memorial Day?

No politician who voted funds for war, no business contractor for the military, no general who ordered young men into battle, no FBI man who spied on anti-war activities, should be invited to public ceremonies on this sacred day. Let the dead of past wars he honored. Let those who live pledge themselves never to embark on mass slaughter again.

“The shell had his number on it. The blood ran into the ground…Where his chest ought to have been they pinned the Congressional Medal, the DSC, the Medaille Militaire, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Italian gold medal, The Vitutea Militara sent by Queen Marie of Rumania. All the Washingtonians brought flowers .. Woodrow Wilson brought a bouquet of poppies.”

Those are the concluding lines of John Dos Passos angry novel 1919. Let us honor him on Memorial Day.

And also Thoreau, who went to jail to protest the Mexican War.

And Mark Twain, who denounced our war against the Filipinos at the turn of the century.

And I.F. Stone, who virtually alone among newspaper editors exposed the fraud and brutality of the Korean War.

Let us honor Martin Luther King, who refused the enticements of the White House, and the cautions of associates, and thundered against the war in Vietnam.

Memorial Day should be a day for putting flowers on graves and planting trees. Also, for destroying the weapons of death that endanger us more than they protect us, that waste our resources and threaten our children and grandchildren.

On Memorial Day we should take note that, in the name of “defense,” our taxes have been used to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on a helicopter assault ship called “the biggest floating lemon,” which was accepted by the Navy although it had over 2,000 major defects at the time of its trial cruise.

Meanwhile, there is such a shortage of housing that millions live in dilapidated sections of our cities and millions more are forced to pay high rents or high interest rates on their mortgages. There’s 90 billion for the B1 bomber, but people don’t have money to pay hospital bills.

We must be practical, say those whose practicality has consisted of a war every generation. We mustn’t deplete our defenses. Say those who have depleted our youth, stolen our resources. In the end, it is living people, not corpses, creative energy, not destructive rage, which are our only real defense, not just against other governments trying to kill us, but against our own, also trying to kill us.

Let us not set out, this Memorial Day, on the same old drunken ride to death.

 Please go here for more:

http://zinnedproject.org/materials/whom-will-we-honor-memorial-day/

 and

http://howardzinn.org/ 

An Antidote For the Biggest Divide In This Country

Photo posted by AlterNet

Circles of Caring, Healing, and Transformation

It was many years ago that I first heard the term and reflected on the idea of "circles of caring." One of my teachers/mentors, the author James Garbarino, described in one of the many books of his that I have, how different a circle of caring would look for a youth who has grown up suffering under the weight of grueling poverty, abuse, isolation, and violence than someone else who has consistently experienced safety, love, connection, and a deep sense of compassion weaving through his or her life. 

And right then and there the perception that took root in my heart that we humans can work in an ongoing way to become mindful of and to then expand our circles of caring. I'd never even thought of circles of caring before! A new story to live by was gifted to me! We can become more aware of what we value and care about, and we can live with the powerful intention to keep expanding and expanding what we experience as our circle of caring. This is a POWERFUL intention!! It is among so many things that have profoundly changed my life. 

Last night I left work and saw a newly killed squirrel in the middle of the road near my work. Sadness in my heart... This morning, driving into work, I noticed that that dead squirrel had been moved by someone off to the shoulder of the road. Acts of random kindness... Then I noticed that next to the little dead squirrel was sitting a little living squirrel who was flapping its tail around, sniffing at the dead squirrel, and appearing to be in obvious distress. In my being I felt this other being grieving a loss. I could feel this sadness, this shared sadness. What a gift.

I used to just be numb... to so much! And today I don't believe there is such thing as being "comfortably numb." Although there may be the illusion that this is true. What I know through my own experience is that the underbelly of numb is great suffering. It hurts us to be disconnected from ourselves, from one another, from other beings, from our Earth Mother, from Life and Love. Just because we don't feel our pain - because we're busy smoking pot or having an affair or shopping till we drop or freakin' pissed off or locked into finger pointing or judgment or us vs them, etc., etc. - doesn't mean that we aren't hurting. Truly, we would not be engaging in those distractions to being present to our own precious life - and those of others - if we weren't hurting.

I am aware of compassion...

Gratefully, my heart keeps breaking open in response to life's 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. I am not compelled to just shut down, shut out, shut up anymore! Gratefulness! And as as I open my heart again and again and again, my circle of caring grows and grows. Each year that I am alive it is bigger yet. YAY!!

May we all care more and more. May we see and heal those obstacles that keep us from more deeply living out of the love that is the essence of our true nature. 

 With love & blessings,

Molly

♥ ♥  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥  

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. 

~ Rumi 

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi: How We Harvest a Lifetime

Unfortunately, we value information, but not wisdom. Information is something we can measure, but wisdom - Where does it come from? How do you get it? If we say that wisdom comes from good judgment, that still leaves us with the question of where good judgment come from. It seems to me that good judgment comes from experience, which comes from bad judgment. In other words, wisdom comes from all the mistakes that we have made. Part of being able to make a good finale in our life is to accept that our mistakes have given you the wisdom you have now. Wisdom comes from garnering, reconstructing, and reconfiguring what we have done in order to use the information we have gotten from the mistakes we have made. This is how we harvest a lifetime.

- Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Excerpted from Nourishing the Soul: Discovering the Sacred In Everyday Life