Howard Zinn To Receive Award

Cranbrook Peace Foundation will honor Howard Zinn at the 19th Annual Lecture & Award Ceremony, November 5, 2006. For full details click here.

Peace Pole at EMU

Yesterday, October 21, 2006, Eastern Michigan University (EMU) dedicated their Peace Pole.

The Ann Arbor News reported today that about 30 spectators were on hand to witness the event. The 8 foot pole proclaims "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in 16 languages. What a way to communicate this peace message to students and others on campus! EMU has students from 90 countries. Now students from other countries can read this important thought in their first language with out a moment of translation.

Professor Gary Evans had the idea for the pole and envisions a peace park, peace curriculum and he envisions that some day students would major in "peace studies".

These ideas are quite compatible with the Department of Peace/Nonviolence legislation's Peace Acedemy.

Nancy and I visited the site today. In a cold 40 degree drizzle, we examined the multisided peace pole made by Peace Poles. If we can have war monuments why not have peace poles expressing the hope and vision of the multitudes that seek peace and nonviolence?

Congressional 2006 Election Forum

Hometown newspaper's (Observer Newspapers) staff writer, Hugh Gallagher, quite accurately reported on the League of Women Voters Forum last Wednesday, October 11, 2006. To read the newspaper story click here.

Perhaps this was the first public statement on the Department of Peace (DoP) NonViolence legislation by candidates John Tater (Libertarian) and Charles Tackett (U.S. Taxpayers). Both candidates support DoP Nonviolence legislation. Previously Thaddeus McCotter (R) expressed his views and positon, he opposes it, at the St. Edith Church DoP forum last September. Tony Trupiano stated that he supports passage of DoP NonViolence at our September meeting.

Four members of The Citizens For Peace District 11 were shown in the column's first photograph. The photo shows (left to right) 3 unknown men, Nancy Weiss, Bob Frank, Colleen Mills, George Mills. In response to the newspaper story,Colleen Mills, president Citizens For Peace, stated: "The Department of Peace was a hot issue at the forum!!!!! We are getting the buzz we wanted!".

Once again the League of Women Voters have demonstrated their committment to democracy by creating a forum for all candidates to speak out on the election issues.

And hats off to the Hometown newspapers for their accurate election reporting. Rarely do we see the print and television news media report on other than the Democratic and Republican parties.

A Time to Reflect

Today is September 11, 2006. There are many events throughout our land and in other lands across the globe commemorating what happened five years ago. Here is a commentary that speaks to repentantce and self reflection:

Sept. 11, 2006

SOCIAL REPENTANCE
by Rabbi Michael Lerner

You don't have to be Jewish to take advantage of the Jewish custom of repentance
at the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah begins this year the night of Sept. 22nd and
the period of soul searching goes through Yom Kippur on October 2nd). This year
every American has plenty of reason to repent-and our society desperately needs
a time for collective reflection on how we have gotten to where we are and how we
might turn things around.

The rise of the Religious Right as a force in American politics has reshaped America's
ethical discourse in a particularly disturbing way. Over the course of the past several
decades the focus of public attention to "sin" has increasingly narrowed to a discussion
of issues related to sexuality and reproduction. The "respectable" news media found
a way around its previous self-imposed constraints on discussions of sex and its
insistence that it was on higher intellectual grounds than the tabloids that were
depleting their market-share by dramatizing the sexual faults of Bill Clinton and
other elected officials.

Yet the Bible and common sense teach us that murder, violence, theft, and oppression are equally important, not only on the individual level but on the communal level.


United Nations studies reveal that we live in a world in which one out of every three people on the planet lives on less than $2 a day, and 1.3 billion live on less than $1 a day. The result is that every day between 20 thousand and thirty three thousand children die of
illness related to malnutrition and curable disease that could be averted were adequate health
care available. That is to say, the day that you read this, approximately 6 to 9 times as many
children will before you go to sleep as all the people who died in the World Trade center on 9/11-
and they will die because we in the richest country of the world have been unwilling to take the steps necessary to share what we have with them.

This is politely called "institutionalized violence" but it is violence nevertheless.

Of course, we are also involved in the daily violence that has resulted from the U.S.
invasion of Iraq. Not only do we pay the taxes that make the war possible, and support
the torture system that President Bush has recently reassured us is necessary for homeland security, but we keep on voting for elected officials who support these policies.


We constantly fall for the bizarre notion that the anti-war Congresspeople really provide an
alternative, whereas in fact most of them continue to vote for the huge defense budget and for
supplemental appropriations to fund the war and to keep our national defense torturers well
financed-hedging their bets in case conservatives might challenge them, yet then pretending
to be "courageous" for saying that their ought to be a cutoff date for our presence in Iraq but
then setting that far in the future.

Al Gore's recent movie alerted many of us to the environmental damage that is quickly leading
to global disaster. But far too many of us have been willing to support political leaders who are
afraid to seriously challenge the corporate interests that reject the major transformations in the
way we organize the global economy that would be necessary to stop this impending disaster.
And then there are the 45 million Americans who receive no health care, the millions who are homeless,
and so many other manifestations of social injustice.

As a rabbi I've been faced with countless young people who tell me that they want no part in Judaism
if, as they constantly hear from sections of the organized Jewish community, the requirement of being
a loyal Jew is to support the current policies of the State of Israel. I try to explain to them that this
equation of Judaism with support for a particular national state, even a state with a majority of Jews,
is pure idolatry and a perversion of Jewish values (there's nothing in our Torah that teaches that loyalty
to a particular state, and indeed our prophets central message was that both the nation and the religion
were being perverted by the national leaders and religious leaders who had allowed their commitments
to the ancient Jewish state to over-ride their commitment to justice, peace and generosity to the powerless).


For saying these ideas I'm sometimes told that I, too, am an enemy of the Jewish people. So it's not
only the oppression of the Palestinians and the destruction of Lebanon for which much of the Jewish
community, having been cheerleaders for the war this summer, need to atone, but for the discrediting
of Judaism in the eyes of its most ethically sensitive youth.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could use this time period to ask every institution in American society
to dedicate ten days to reflection on the degree to which it is currently livng up to its own highest ideals,
how far we have "missed the mark" (which is the real meaning of the word translated into English as "sin"),
and what we need to do to return to our highest vision and make it real in our lives.

Yes, we also need a personal accounting and look at our own personal roles in participating in a
reality that runs counter to our ethical notions. But in a society so focused on personal life,
there are institutions like psychotherapy and religious communities that do a good job of helping
us do that personal reflection. What we need is a corresponding institution in our collective
life-and so many of us in the Jewish world want to invite our neighbors to participate with us
in creating a societal-wide process of repentance and transformation.


Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine www.tikkun.org, national chair of the Network
of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) www.spiritualprogressives.org, and author of 11 books, most recently The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).

RabbiLerner@tikkun.org

Citizens for Peace Meeting: September 12
Our monthly meeting will be at Unity of Livonia at 7 pm. The theme this month is
"Forgiveness". We will view and discuss two short videos of the Department of Peace
Conference that was held over September 11th weekend last year. Azim Khamisa and
John Titus are featured. Please come and bring a friend.

	Film Series
	Michigan Coalition for Human Rights www.MCHR.org (313.579.9071) presents
		Citizens for Peace and Madonna University Present MCHR’s FRIDAY FALL 2006 FILM SERIES Call 734-425-0079 for more info

All films shown at 7 p.m.

Madonna University, Schoolcraft & Levan

Donation: $5.00 per event. Parking in large, free, well-lighted lot.

“THE GROUND TRUTH” September 22 Hear and witness the lives of our soldiers in this penetrating film. The shocking ground conflict is only a prelude to even more challenging battles these reluctant heroes face upon their return home.

“WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE; A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS”

September 29 As the world watched in horror, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Like many who watched the unfolding drama on television news, director Spike Lee was shocked not only by the scale of the disaster, but by the slow, inept and disorganized response of the emergency and recovery effort.

“ABANDONED” October 13 www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/aban.html

Through a close look at the personal impact of recent immigration laws, this film depicts the severity of current detention and deportation policies. Lives are changed forever, as legal residents find themselves being torn away from their American families and sent to countries they barely know.

“IRAQ FOR SALE; THE WAR PROFITEERS” October 27 www.iraqforsale.org/about.php. This searing indictment takes us inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. It uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

Also at different times & dates:

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Woodward at 11 Mile Road, Royal Oak. 313-579-9071

Shelby Twp: St. Therese Church.. (586) 242-4250

Press Release July 10, 2006

Nagasaki Day will be observed at Southfield’s Hope United Methodist Church, August 9^th in a Remembrance ceremony open to the public. Last year, the observance was held at Unity of Livonia with nearly 200 people attending.

Imagine, if you will, that an atomic bomb the size of the one that destroyed Nagasaki, exploded above the Livonia Courthouse. It happened before, not once, but twice. Hiroshima was devastated by a nuclear weapon August 6, 1945. Nagasaki, was destroyed three days later. The toll: an estimated 200,000 dead—mostly civilians. You’ve seen pictures of the devastation caused by those two nuclear weapons. Let your imagination continue and visualize the damage to Livonia. The postal workers at ground zero. Gone. The office workers in the beautiful city hall building, burned, maimed and dying. City hall would be reduced to rubble. The library, a pile of charred books. If schools were in session, hundreds if not thousands of children would be killed or injured. Picture the blinding flash of light as hundreds of homes, buildings, and automobiles are demolished or ignited in flames. Pets, lost in the debris.

One would hope and pray that that would never happen…to Livonia or any other place on this planet. For one thing, the devastation would be far greater, the death toll far higher. Today’s nuclear weaponry is 40 times more powerful than those that wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And many delivery systems are armed with multiple nuclear warheads pre-set to strike numerous targets simultaneously. And most chilling of all, there are thousands of such devices-- 12,000 in the U.S. alone.

For this reason the dates of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been observed every year for the past sixty years throughout the world. At Hope United Methodist Church, the observance begins at 7:00 and includes remarks on the current state of nuclear weaponry by Dr. Prasad Venagopal, associate professor of physics atUof D Mercy. A 15 minute version of the film “Full Circle” which documents the journey of Buddhist Monks who kept alive the flame from the ashes of Hiroshima for 60 years will be offered. Film maker Matt Taylor follows the monks as they walk 1600 miles from San Francisco to the New Mexico site where the bomb was constructed, with the live flame. The flame is extinguished in a moving ceremony.

The observance includes a performance by the “Cross Bearers of Hope” dancers, a song,“No More Hiroshima” by Motoko Huthwaite, photos of the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then closes with a candlelight vigil. Following the observance there will be refreshments, and informational materials. Members of the Citizens for Peace,11^th District, along with the Detroit Area Peace and Justice Network, co-sponsors of the event, will be available to answer questions. Hope United Methodist Church is located on the south side of the Northwestern Highway service drive, just east of Lasher, and can also be reached by taking Civic Center Drive.

For more information, call Colleen Mills at 734-425-0079.

George T. Mills 29742 Buckingham Livonia, MI 48154

War: Some Good News and Not So Good News
The Iraq war continues to dominate the news to the extent that we don't get a larger view of war. But there is a Knight Ritter report that says "Wars Are On The Wane Worldwide". In this column there is some good news. For example, "Two-thirds of U.N. peacekeeping efforts succeed." But here is some not so good news: "If war is falling out of fashion, Americans may be among the last to notice it. The United States has fought 16 armed conflicts since 1946. Only the United Kingdom, with 21, and France, with 19, have fought more, according to the University of British Columbia's 2005 Human Security Report, which analyzes trends in political violence worldwide."
But the story points out that there is a trend toward using other means to resolve conflict among nations rather than war.

A Peace Greeting

Here is a peace greeting that you might want to send to your friends.

We Are All One

We are all in this together. One poet put it this way: "no man is an island".

A Call to End War

Howard Zinn, a premier historian, predicts that there will be a move to end war once the "fog" of propaganda dissipates as our troops come home from Iraq.