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Several insights into NONVIOLENCE are inspirational and practical.

April 25, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

“Nonviolence offers many ways to create permanent, long-term positive changes that would enable us to rebuild social institutions on a more humane and sustainable basis. . . . Each of us, whatever our station in life or relation to activism, can carry out his grand ‘experiment with truth’ according to our own capacities and the situation we confront.”  Michael Nagler wrote this.  He writes a lot of good materials about nonviolence.  Although Amazon lists many of his books, I encourage people to buy them from locally owned bookstores:  https://www.amazon.com/Michael-N.-Nagler/e/B001JS2SXE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1548914216&sr=1-1&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c837e75d-37a4-4438-9de5-33bd77f131eb&pldnSite=1   “Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware […]

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June 17-21, 2019: Learn how to mediate disputes.

April 25, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

The Dispute Resolution Center of Thurston County (the DRC at 360-956-1155 www.mediatethurston.org) offers TRAINING IN HOW TO MEDIATE DISPUTES. I highly recommend this 40-hour Professional Mediation Training during one week in June (17th through 21st), 2019.  It runs Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  It can help you strengthen your relationships at home, at work, and beyond.  The insights are practical in our daily lives.  I encourage people to take this training even if you do not think you’d want to be one of the DRC’s volunteer mediators. This fun and highly interactive 40-hour training will acquaint […]

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PREVENT Trump from starting a stupid, counter-productive war against Iran.

April 23, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

If you disagree with somebody, the proper way to resolve the conflict is to TALK and use DIPLOMACY and perhaps use a MEDIATOR. The U.S. government sometimes — and especially Trump nowadays — chooses military violence instead. That only backfires. The U.S. keeps bogging itself down in unwinnable wars in many places. These wars waste our tax dollars, which we should be spending for useful purposes. These wars kill and injure many people in other countries. These wars turn world opinion against us. These wars subvert human rights and constitutional rights.   Trump has been trying to start a war […]

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Sharply reduce militarism and guns. Schools should teach PEACE and NONVIOLENCE instead of Junior ROTC.

February 6, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

A few days ago I posted to my blog this information about the fact that the mass-murderer at the high school in Parkland, Florida, had learned how to become an expert marksman because he actually attended that same high school and was enrolled in its Junior ROTC program:  http://parallaxperspectives.org/the-mass-murderer-at-parkland-florida-was-trained-by-junior-rotc-at-that-school   This tragedy shows that BOTH militarism AND guns are out of control. Schools with Junior ROTC programs are training their students to commit mass murder — in the military against people in other countries — and perhaps also in their own local schools. WE MUST STOP THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE! […]

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Rescue U.S. foreign policy from ALL hawks including Trump

December 21, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

News coverage about General Mattis’s resignation as Secretary of Defense is surreal. They keep saying that Mattis was a stabilizing “adult” in Trump’s regime. But Mattis is an EXTREME HAWK known as “Mad Dog.”  He resigned because Trump decided to remove U.S. troops from Syria and to reduce U.S. troops in Afghanistan.  Those are small steps in the right direction.  Trump is no dove, but these modest steps reduce the reckless hawkishness in U.S. foreign policy. When Mattis resigns over those modest steps – and when mainstream media and bi-partisan members of Congress support Mattis’s extreme hawkishness instead of Trump’s […]

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Trump + Pompeo plan to overthrow Iran’s government

December 20, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Trump is hell-bent to overthrow Iran’s government for several reasons. Trump hired John Bolton and Mike Pompeo for very high level positions in his administration.  Both are extremely aggressive opponents of Iran and opponents of honest diplomacy in general. Trump is utterly subservient to two nations that have long wanted to attack Iran:  Israel and Saudi Arabia. This article explains clearly what Trump is trying to do:  https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/5/1809961/-What-does-Secretary-of-State-Pompeo-mean-by-restore-democracy-in-Iran?detail=emaildksp This smart article provides several reasons to OPPOSE Trump’s pending war against Iran:  https://fpif.org/a-vital-primer-on-the-push-for-war-in-iran/ Here is another article with thoughtful insights into Iran and world politics:  https://popularresistance.org/europe-and-the-us-clash-over-washingtons-economic-war-on-iran/ The older information I report […]

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Substitute PEACE instead of our militaristic foreign policy

December 4, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

The U.S.’s militaristic foreign policy does NOT work. It makes problems worse and causes more problems. It wastes money. The document linked here explains why we should replace our militaristic foreign policy with a commitment to peace, human rights, and other good things. Notes for Substituting Peace Instead of the U.S.’s Militaristic Foreign Policy Near the end of that document I explain the reasons why we should replace the U.S.’s militaristic “National Security” model with a NONVIOLENT model of “TRUE Security.”  For a one-page summary distinguishing these two models, see this link: “TRUE Security TABLE”           […]

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PART 2 of “Choose a Better Worldview to Build a Better World”

November 30, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Our nation and world are in a horrible mess.  The December 2018 episode of “Glen’s Parallax Perspectives” TV series examines how to solve the problems. A person or an entire society has a “worldview” — a way of seeing reality — that strongly directs their behavior and public policy.  The worldview that currently dominates the U.S. government and society has caused escalating greed, corruption, cruelty, oppression, war, and other bad things.  Instead, we need to replace that worldview with its opposite — a worldview that is humane, compassionate, peaceful, fair to everyone, and environmentally sustainable. An unjust society seeks to […]

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De-Militarize U.S. Foreign Policy

October 28, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

In 2016 I created a workshop to help people understand the U.S.’s violent foreign policy and see how we might de-militarize it.  I created a handout for people to use during the workshop, and so people anywhere at any time can walk themselves through the process. Here is a link so you can do that:  De-Militarize U.S. Foreign Policy — WORKSHOP Handout for Participants and Others    

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Thomas Merton’s quotation about the violence in American culture

October 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Thomas Merton, the pacifist philosopher, theologian and mystic, wrote this (probably during the 1960s): “The real focus of American violence is in the very culture itself, its mass media, its extreme individualism and competitiveness, its inflated myths of virility and toughness, and its overwhelming preoccupation with the power of nuclear, chemical, bacteriological, and psychological overkill. If we live in what is essentially a culture of overkill, how can we be surprised at finding violence in it? Can we get to the root of the trouble? In my opinion, the best way to do it would have been the classic way […]

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To Achieve Social Justice, We Must De-Polarize Our Society

October 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Oppressors like to use a “divide-and-conquer” strategy in order to keep the oppressed people from joining together to empower themselves to nonviolently fight against the oppressors. We need to recognize that tactic and refuse to let oppressors polarize us by race or religion or sexual orientation or any other factor. I wrote this article in 2018 and encourage people to read it and use its insights to de-polarize our society so we can join together to work for social justice: De-Polarize    

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Community Affirmation: Peace, Not Nuclear Weapons

July 27, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

This Community Affirmation was affirmed at the June 1982 International Religious Convocation for the Second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament.  It remains timely today.   Community Affirmation   We who live in the shadow of the mushroom cloud and the dangers of bullets on our streets Today declare our hope in the future.   From the diversity of our religious traditions We have come to renew our belief in the holiness of the earth and the sanctity of all life. We declare we are at peace with all people of good will.   We need no leader to define […]

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Smart insights to distinguish “conflict” from “abuse.”

July 17, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Someone sent me an e-mail expressing support for “Conflict is Not Abuse” from Sarah Schulman.  I searched for information about the book and found this very insightful article.  It offers smart, practical and compassionate ways out of the traps that many people — especially progressives — get into regarding how we deal with social justice issues at an interpersonal level. Rather than try to summarize her helpful insights here, I encourage you to read this information about her book: https://www.thestranger.com/books/2017/01/10/24792575/sarah-schulmans-conflict-is-not-abuse-is-a-guide-to-keeping-the-peace      

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U.S. Militarism Promotes Gun Violence. To reduce gun violence here, reduce military violence worldwide.

July 10, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

“Climate deniers” refuse to acknowledge the human causes of the climate crisis. Likewise some people try to blame gun violence on far-fetched causes such as popular music or pornography, even though those are common in other rich nations with very little gun violence. Deeply embedded in U.S. culture is an excessive willingness to use military violence. The U.S. has a long history of mistakenly thinking that violence solves problems. The U.S. has started wars to dominate other nations, especially since the 1898 Spanish American War. In the past 120 years the U.S. military has overthrown dozens of nations. We have […]