What I thought of, straight off, as I watched that 17-minute WikiLeaks video of Iraqis – including a Reuters photographer and his driver – being strafed on a Baghdad street in 2007 by a U.S. helicopter, was a book of postcards published a decade ago.

The book, compiled by James Allen, is called Without Sanctuary. My guess is that you don’t have it sitting on your coffee table. The postcards and various other stained, frayed photographs – about a hundred of them – depict mostly black men, a few women, a few white men, in the process or aftermath of being lynched in the United States, in the first half of the 20th century. The dangling or burned corpses are surrounded, in most of the pictures, by grim or smirking or benevolently smiling onlookers, some of them children. It’s the most surreal and troubling historical document I’ve ever seen in my life.

Today we begin the process of undoing the great harm done by a narrow majority on the U.S. Supreme Court in its recent Citizens United v. FEC decision. I just returned from our first Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focused specifically on how, in light of the Court's misguided decision, we can protect our political process from excessive corporate spending.


The Founding Fathers crafted a Constitution and adopted a Bill of Rights to guarantee the fundamental rights of the American people, not corporations. After all, corporations are different from individual citizens. They do not have the same rights, morals, or motivations. They cannot vote. They are legal constructs designed to conduct commerce, nothing more.


by Rabbi Michael Lerner

This moment will be looked back upon as giving a signal of encouragement to some of the most fascistic elements in the American political Right.

Van Jones Resignation: Bad for the Country and Bad for Obama By Rabbi Michael Lerner

I signed the same statement on 9/11 that Van Jones signed, and there was nothing immoderate about it. It didn't say what the Right claimed it said (and the mainstream media chimed in without investigation). I'll explain below.

Jones' resignation is bad for the country and for the Obama Administration. It's bad for Americawhen progressive views are an excuse to purge someone from the Administration while extremist right-wing views of past Administrations were always given a "pass."

Van Jones forced resignation is a huge defeat for the forces of sanity and humanity, and represents a deep failure of the Obama-ites to understand the nature of the challenge they face from an increasingly fascistic Right wing.

This is the 15th year that we have commemorated Sadako Peace Day in this beautiful garden created by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria.  It is a garden inspired by a young girl, Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old when she was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.  Ten years later, Sadako succumbed to radiation induced leukemia. 

Today we join with the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and with people all over the world in remembering a somber and world changing day 64 years ago, when the first atomic weapon was used in warfare.  We learned, or should have learned, that one bomb can destroy a city, that no longer would any city on the planet be safe from the threat of annihilation, and that we had created weapons capable of destroying humankind.  This is a lot of information to take in, and I doubt that it has been fully absorbed by humanity even now.

Before she died, she inspired her classmates by her valiant attempt to fold 1,000 paper cranes – a symbol of long life in Japan.  Sadako wrote on the wings of one of these paper cranes: “I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.”  Each year, students send colorful paper cranes that they have folded, some 10 million of them, to Hiroshima in honor of Sadako.  There is a statue of her with outstretched arms in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Click to watch Marianne’s commentary about the legislation Marianne's comments about the legislation. If it sounds like a good idea to you, make a constituent call to your member of the US House of Representatives and say you want him or her to support legislation to create a US Department of Peace. To find your Congressperson or his or her contact info, visit www.congress.org

In a remarkable speech for any American leader, President Obama, speaking in Prague on April 5, 2009, provided new hope for a world free of nuclear weapons. "I state clearly and with conviction," he said, "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." He told his audience that America, as the only country to have used nuclear weapons, "has a moral responsibility to act."

For many years the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been calling for US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world, based on the understanding that if the US does not lead, significant progress will not be possible. For the past two presidencies this leadership has been largely lacking. During the George W. Bush presidency, the US was the leading obstacle to nuclear disarmament. Now, with President Obama, there is a dramatic shift and the goal of US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world that once seemed far distant, if not impossible, appears at hand.

President Obama's speech in Prague was a world changing moment, a promise of unprecedented historical change on the most profoundly dangerous issue confronting not only America but the world. In this speech he recognized the imperative for our common security of eliminating nuclear weapons and of America's unique moral responsibility to lead this effort.

"It is well known that in times of economic difficulty violence increases. When relationships are strained by economic hardship, domestic violence, violent robbery and abuse of children and animals all increase. When the world is facing possibly the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, now is not the time to ignore social issues and interpersonal relationships, now is the time to make special attention to make sure that our relations and health do not suffer along with your pocket books," stated Kucinich.

The Cabinet-level Department authorized in the legislation embodies a broad-based approach to peaceful, non-violent conflict resolution at both domestic and international levels. The Department of Peace would serve to promote non-violence as an organizing principle in our society, and help to create the conditions for a more peaceful world.

Peace is a foundational principle of this Congress and of this country. This bill gives it a chance to have an animating power in our civic life by addressing the issues of domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, violence in the schools and racial violence.

If it sounds like a good idea to you, make a constituent call to your member of the US House of Representatives and say you want him or her to support legislation to create a US Department of Peace. To find your Congressperson or his or her contact info, visit www.congress.org.

You don't have to know who they are. The Creator does.

Just do this.

For a minimum of five minutes every day, meditate in the following way:

Pray that anyone even thinking of committing a terrorist act, anywhere in the world, be surrounded by a huge golden egg.

The eggshell is made of the spiritual equivalent of titanium. It is impenetrable. Any malevolent, hateful or violent thought that emanates from the mind of the terrorist cannot get past the confines of the eggshell. Before the violent thought can turn into violent action, it is stopped by the force of this meditative field.

Energetically, the terrorist is quarantined.

On the inside of the egg, see a shower of golden Light pouring from the eggshell into the heart and mind of the terrorist. Pray for your lost brother. See him or her being healed by the force of divine Love, wrapped in the arms of angels, reminded of who he truly is.

Five minutes. Every day. Tell everyone you know.

-----by Marianne Williamson

On November 7, 2008, at 9:45 am, I took a vow of non-violence in my thoughts, in my speech and in my actions. I, then, also had an opportunity to ask the almost 500 people attending the plenary session for the Alliance for a New Humanity in Barcelona if they would join me in this commitment.

I first asked them to close their eyes, put their awareness in their hearts and ask themselves honestly and seriously if they were willing to take a vow.

I told them that a vow is a sacred commitment from which there is no going back. It is like a child that is born, who cannot return to the womb.

I told them if they were ready to take this vow, they should stand up.

People stood up, one by one at first, then in groups of twos and threes, and finally in tidal waves, until more than 450 people had stood up and taken the vow.

Following this, everybody agreed to have at least two people in their lives take the vow. The two in turn, would have two others join them in taking the vow. Our immediate goal now is to get 100 Million people across the world to take this vow. In the meantime, we will be setting up ways to measure and support the dramatic effects this tidal wave of shift in consciousness is going to create.

Are you seriously committed to bringing about a world of peace, harmony, laughter and love by taking this vow and getting two people to join you?

If you are ready, go to deepakchopra.com and join me and others who are committed to non violence in our thoughts, speech and actions. You are welcome to pass the vow to your friends!

Love,
Deepak Chopra

-------------------

Yes we still can

The year is 2016. You glance at the television one morning and see President Obama having another of his many open press conferences. He has now been in office for almost 8 years. It has not been perfect, but things are so much better than when he took office in January of 2009. He still has that winsome smile that lights up a room and exudes the same passionate, positive energy that he emanated while campaigning back in 2008.

How does Sears treat its employees who are called up for military duty? By law, they are required to hold their jobs open and available, but nothing more. Usually, people take a big pay cut and lose benefits as a result of being called up. 

Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years. 

I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution. I suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves. 

While much has been made of voter fraud issues over the last few days, the problem of election fraud is a much greater danger. Read on...

MW

Tribune Media Services

Peace is no more -- and no less -- than the audacity of sanity, reaching past the dubious geopolitics of national self-interest and standing, as Hank Brusselback did, underneath the ancient bridge in Esfahan, Iran, listening to the men who had gathered to sing.

It's called civilian diplomacy, and it is one way we will create the peace our leaders don't believe we're ready for.

"If the government isn't willing to talk to people, then the people need to be willing to (talk to each other)," Brusselback said. "It comes from a belief in the nature of security -- it's not about weapons, fear and posturing on the world stage. It's about communication, talking to people, everyone having their basic needs met. If you understood security that way, you'd see that security is about dialogue."

Designing and developing weapons of mass annihilation should not be business as usual, especially for a great university. And yet, for the UC, it is business as usual. Since the beginning of the Nuclear Age, the UC has been in the business of providing management and oversight to the nation's principal nuclear weapons laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The UC is now in that business with corporate partners such as Bechtel.

Your involvement with the weapons labs is arguably illegal under international law, is certainly immoral and, from a security perspective, perpetuates US reliance on nuclear weapons, which undermines US and global security. It also sends exactly the wrong message to the young people who are educated at the University of California. It suggests to them that it must be acceptable to create weapons capable of destroying civilization when a great university engages in doing so.

The UC shares in the responsibility for creating all nuclear weapons in the US arsenal. Should these weapons ever be used, by accident or design, the responsibility and accountability for that use will rest not only upon decision makers in the US government, but upon the UC system – including upon those who remained indifferent or apathetic in the face of the UC oversight of the weapons labs.

The culture of war goes quietly about its business. Last week, Congress fed it another $162 billion, perhaps with some nostalgia: This was the final war-funding request of the Bush administration, the lame-duck, despised status of which making absolutely no difference in the dispatch with which the money was delivered.

Yes, there was some protest - 155 nay votes on the funding amendment, to 268 yea - and we can take a little wan heart in this trend, but the protest strikes me as largely symbolic. I fear that while the anti-war-funding contingent in Congress may want to be on record as morally correct, it understands that the war is inevitable and cannot be opposed in some structural and career-endangering way.

This was evinced a few weeks ago by the cryptic words of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.), who, as reported on CQ.com, said that he "opposes giving any more funding for the war but felt he had a professional obligation to produce a bill that can pass."