Diplomacy

Sunbeams

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 04:00:00 -0400

They argued about the weather, sports, sex, war, race, politics, and religion; neither of them knew much about the subjects they debated, but it seemed that the less they knew the better they could argue.

Richard Wright, “The Man Who Went to Chicago”

The World We Still Have

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 00:00:00 -0500

One of the reasons we’re lonely . . . is that we’ve cut ourselves off from the nonhuman world, and have called this “progress.”

An Unlikely Friendship

Sat, 01 Oct 2016 00:00:00 -0400

Do not give up hope. Despite the Holocaust there is now a German ambassador in Israel, and an Israeli ambassador in Berlin. Fortunately the Palestinians didn’t kill 6 million Israelis, and the Israelis didn’t kill 6 million Palestinians. There is hope that we can reconcile, too.

New Strategy

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 11:45:00 -0400

Instead of attacking one more foreign city, hammering it into rubble, / we adopt a new strategy and start bombing with money.

Undermining Democracy

Sun, 01 Jun 2014 00:00:00 -0400

Researchers find in their polls that the attitudes of the poorest 70 percent of Americans have essentially no effect on policy. Those people are disenfranchised. It doesn’t matter what they think. Political leaders just don’t pay any attention to them. As you move up the income scale, you see a little more influence. By the time you get to the top, attitudes and public policy are very similar, because the few at the top are the ones who design the policy. They essentially get what they want. You can’t call that democracy. It’s some kind of plutocracy.

Loving The Stranger

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The people who preach that “politics is the art of the possible” continually forget that we don’t know what’s possible; we find out by struggling for what’s desirable. Instead of listening to those who tell you to pick goals that can be achieved in the current political landscape, I say pick goals that will create the kind of world you want.

Sunbeams

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

They buried the hatchet, but in a shallow, well-marked grave.

Dorothy Walworth

My Enemy, My Brother

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I think the worst things happen to both politics and religion when they are intertwined, as they are in Israel. Religion should not be part of the government and should not have such a strong influence on policy. I am suspicious of people who take the Bible as instruction for how to act in politics. I am suspicious of fundamentalists who look at the world in absolute terms and do not make any compromises, because this is a region that yearns for compromises. If we and the Palestinians do not have the ability to compromise, if we become trapped by total adherence to the Bible and the Koran, then we shall all be doomed.

Seduced By War

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500

In retrospect we can see that the Gulf War wasn’t the triumph it seemed to be at the time. In a tactical sense, we succeeded in ejecting Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait, and we did it with great speed and remarkably modest casualties on our side. But in the long run all we really did was wade deeper into a political morass that we don’t understand. After the war, the decision was made to maintain U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia. And, because we didn’t remove Saddam Hussein from power, we ended up with a policy of military containment that had us imposing sanctions on Iraq — with horrific results for the Iraqi people — and bombing the country on a weekly, if not daily, basis, beginning in 1998. So we went tripping blindly down the path to September 11, 2001. The Gulf War was a pivotal event leading to this mess we call the “global war on terror.”

The War Within Islam

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

We’ve made it easier for jihadist propagandists to convince the Muslim world that this is a war against Islamic values. . . . You want to know why we’re losing the war on terror? Because they have the better marketing campaign.

And A Time For Peace

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:00:00 -0500

This war was waged, ostensibly, over weapons of mass destruction. I always say that if you want to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, all you have to do is go to the pediatric wards and see the children whose lives have been ruined by depleted-uranium ammunition left in the soil after the Gulf War. The U.S. has developed, sold, and used more weapons of mass destruction than any other nation in history.

God Is Dead

rcurriejr@gmail.com — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Disguised as a young Dinka woman, God came at dusk to a refugee camp in the North Darfur region of Sudan. He wore a flimsy green cotton dress, battered leather sandals, hoop earrings, and a length of black-and-white beads around his neck. Over his shoulder he carried a cloth sack which held a second dress, a bag of sorghum, and a plastic cup.

The Boy Who Kissed The Soldier

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:00:00 -0400

In the ruins of Jenin, an old friend of mine is digging bodies out of the rubble where Israeli bulldozers have flattened houses, burying people alive. She describes the scene to me: Blackened, maggot-ridden corpses are displayed to anguished relatives for identification.

Sunbeams

Wed, 01 Aug 2001 16:48:00 -0400

We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.

Lydia Maria Child

Neighborhood Bully

Wed, 01 Aug 2001 00:00:00 -0400

Our overriding purpose, from the beginning right through to the present day, has been world domination — that is, to build and maintain the capacity to coerce everybody else on the planet: nonviolently, if possible; and violently, if necessary. But the purpose of our foreign policy of domination is not just to make the rest of the world jump through hoops; the purpose is to facilitate our exploitation of resources. And insofar as any people or states get in the way of our domination, they must be eliminated — or, at the very least, shown the error of their ways.

The Battle

Sat, 01 Apr 1995 00:15:00 -0500

They were so angry that they decided to have a battle. So terrible was their anger that they would not wait, but declared that the fight must be fought now, immediately, on this very spot.

Sunbeams

Fri, 01 Feb 1991 00:06:00 -0500

War: A Sunbeams Supplement

Heaven On Earth

Tue, 01 Jan 1991 00:05:00 -0500

Radical: You talk about yoga, and meditation, and prayer, and the search for ultimate truth. But what is your spirituality in practice? Spiritual Seeker: You’re so angry. What kind of change will you create if you’re dominated by these feelings? Will the world you build be so different from the one we have now?

How Peace Was Discovered

Thu, 01 Jan 1987 00:05:00 -0500

In the fifteen years since the Great Destruction we have come far: not only have weapons been put aside, but governments and institutions have themselves become virtually meaningless, and the assumption of individual responsibility for wholesome, healing function is virtually everyone’s concern and priority.

Through The Eyes Of A Citizen Diplomat

Thu, 01 Jan 1987 00:00:00 -0500

Russians are better informed about Americans than Americans are about Russians. They study this country more systematically than we do theirs. There’s much more news on Soviet television about life in the U.S. than there is news in the U.S. about life in the Soviet Union. A lot of it comes through the propaganda filters of the Soviet bureaucracy, but that’s offset by the direct experience that Russians have when they meet Americans. They may be told in political cartoons that the American system is out to get them, but they make a distinction between the American government and the American people.

February 1980

Fri, 01 Feb 1980 18:12:00 -0500

Russia invades Afghanistan, and the United States, playing the outraged suitor, wags its hips at China. The problem of relationship is global and personal. What are the boundaries? Who do we kiss and who do we kill?