Donna Summer passed away today. We found a song she sang about peace, and are making it the Peace Song of the Day.

“Let There Be Peace”
Dedicated to the memory of
Donna Summer, born LaDonna Adrian Gaines
Born: Dec 31, 1948
Died: May 17, 2012

Excerpt from lyrics:

Someone let communication out the door
Someone decided it’s worth fighting for…
*

For every boy and every girl
Let there be love
All over the world
For everyone
Under the sun…

Let there be peace on earth…
*

We’re running out of time
As our leaders roll the dice
The human spirit cries…

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More Daily Peace Songs at our
Daily Peace Song tab: here

The Peace Song of the Day is a project of Duke Augustus and Duchess Susanna, The Duke and Duchess of Peace. The Duke and Duchess recognize that one of the paths to peace is to find soulful and nonviolent entertainment, and to express oneself with art and song.

Jello Biafra‘s “Attack of the Peacekeepers” is the Peace Song of the Day for May 16th.

This choice is somewhat unusual for our Peace Couple daily project, because it is punk rock, a little too fast for most campfire singers, and has quite an edge of sarcasm. Though, NATO will meet in Chicago, and this song is an interesting way to think about the facts of peace, war, and military strategy.

This song is from the 1980′s. It alludes to the way that NATO made us believe we needed their bombs and military might to ward off the Soviets and East Germany. It is interesting to realize how the Soviet and East German threats truly faded away. And, it might be interesting to update this song with verses about the fake war on terrorism.

Sample lyrics and more info on the Chicago demonstrations at the readmore…

At OccupyWallSt.org, you can find a huge schedule of nonviolent, activist events surrounding the May 20th and May 21st 2012 NATO meeting in Chicago. Sunday, May 21st will be the big peace march.

For more links and information about the NATO demonstrations in Chicago, see our post: How do people who cherish peace respond to the NATO summit in Chicago?

(excerpt from)
Attack of the Peacekeepers
by Jello Biafra
*
Remember -
NATO is here to protect you
With nuclear bombs
That come to visit
And decided to stay
*
Chorus
*
Attack!
Attack!
Of the peacekeepers
Attack!

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More Daily Peace Songs at our
Daily Peace Song tab: here

The Peace Song of the Day is a project of Duke Augustus and Duchess Susanna, The (whimsical) Duke and Duchess of Peace. These songs exemplify nonviolence, and are usually chosen with singability in mind. We present lots of folk music. Though, in the spirit of diversity and spicing things up, we have also included opera, jazz, and punk rock!

A collection of links and articles related to work being done by activists in Chicago, to nurture peace and nonviolence, as NATO meets in Chicago, on May 20th and 21st.

The big march will be:
5/21/2012 Sunday starting at 2pm from Grant Park/Chicago
(with cultural and lead-up activities starting at 11am)

at OccupyWallSt.org
#ChicagoSpring: Occupy NATO May 12-21 Full Schedule

commentary at In These Times
As Chicago Prepares For NATO, Four Ways That Demonstrators Can Win
(including very specific comments and strategies for the peace movement)

news at Rockford Register
Activists Hold Own Chicago Summit Before NATO
(A May 13th story with updates of meetings and attendance)

news at Chicago Tribune
A Time For Peace, Pastors Say

ongoing coverage at Democracy Now!
And, Democracy Now on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/search/democracynow
or
@democracynow

To follow events on Twitter, you can use:
#ChicagoSpring
#NoNATO

The website for Occupy Chicago is:
www.occupychi.org

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Here at Peace Couple we will post updates on peace activism in Chicago.

The fifteenth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace contains Rajendra Prasad‘s 1963 essay  The Way to Disarmament.  Like the recently discussed writings by Merton, Fromm, and Muste, finding the path to peace through disarmament is the focus of Prasad’s  essay. Dr. Prasad spent his life working for Indian independence and was the first President of the Republic of India. He wrote the essay a year before he died.

Prasad decries the technological advance of warfare. He found that this “misuse” of science and techonolgy vastly increased the scale of human life that was destroyed, and seperated the destructive act from the realization that human life was being taken.  His discussion is immediately relevant to the use of drones to murder today. Prasad looks to his contemporaries for guidance on how to move foraward”

This is what Mahatma Gandhi meant when he said that ultimate nonviolence was only safe defense not only for the individual but for nations.  

Prasad did not expect all of humanity to adopt Gandhi’s nonviolent principles, as he had done.

Our objective is a limited one — namely, the cessation of all nuclear tests, banning of nuclear weapons and total disarmament.

Caption: Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (left), Rajendra Prasad (Centre) and Bhulabhai Desai (right) at the AICC Session. April 1939

Because of the scale of the effect of the weapons of amss destruction, Prasad finds that it is no longer just a dispute between two isolated parties, current and future generations on a planet-wide scale are at risk.  There is no defense against nuclear war, only rettaliation, which would spread the planet-wide effects.

Like Merton and Fromm, he finds that continuing to depend on increasing amounts of nuclear weapons while hoping for peace, is insane.  Prasad, too, finds that only only solution is to step into a new paradigm.

The cure for fear, Mahatma Gandhi taught us, is faith,  for suspicion sincerity, and for distrust, trust.

Prasad dissects the problem with piecemeal movement toward disarmament.  Often one parties proposal to institute a freeze against new weapons, testing, or a certain type of weapon is just way to lock in place the advantage one side has over the other.

The straightest and simplest way to break through this viscous cycle would be for all powers to abjure the use of force altogether, and for this abjuration would have to be reflected in their domestic policies.

Prasad calls on the countries of the world for one to be the first to unilaterally disarm.  He specially calls out his own India as a country that should lead the way based on its creation through nonviolence. Prasad turns again to Gandhi to emphasize that India’s history does not mean it will reach disarmament first nor does it excuse the other nations from the possibility of leapfrogging forward to disarmament.

Though Prasad is not under any illusion that disarmament will happen in a single step, he emphasizes that the only path is “unadulterated nonviolence”  He sees no room for “compromise” on that principle, palliatives or expediency.  There is no lesser evil when it comes to violence nor the excuse that the “perfect is the enemy of the good.”

A plan for nonviolent defense, however, can have as its object only the preservation of of a way of life that is based on honest industry, and the right to enjoy in full the fruit of such industry, coupled with equality and individual freedom, not a way of life based on exploitation, inequality, class distinction, class pride and class rule.

Prasad contrasts the inability of nuclear weapons to preserve any “way of life” except its “extinction”  with the numerous successes of nonviolent movements in the 20th century. He argues that the only way to fight the “terrorism” of nuclear weapons is to refuse to submit to them.  Prasad gives India’s own history as the example.  the British knew they could continue with their violence, but they could no longer count on it generating submission.

Prasad returns to Gandhi’s own statements on nuclear weapons.  He found that nonviolence was the only response, and hope of avoiding humanity’s “suicide”.

Related articles

• Merton: The Root of War is Fear (peacecouple.com)
• Fromm: Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament (peacecouple.com)
• Nonviolence: Muste’s Getting Rid of War (peacecouple.com)

“Woke Up This Morning With My Mind On Freedom” is the Peace Song of the Day for May 8th.

Sample lyrics and more about this song choice at the readmore…

Can you have peace without freedom? Probably not. (So, let’s all start thinking about recent developments in America, such as the passage of the NDAA with indefinite detention provisions, and the recent Supreme Court decision on strip searches.)

You can find chords and lyrics to “My Mind Set On Freedom” in the Rise Up Singing songbook, and also in the book, We Shall Overcome: Song of the Southern Freedom Movement, compiled by Guy and Candie Carawan for SNCC. It is drawn from traditional music, with additions by Reverend Osby of Aurora, IL and Robert Zellner.

Above is the video we found of vocalist Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock singing this song on the sidewalk with a group of occupiers.

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Sample lyrics
Woke Up This Morning With My Mind On Freedom

I woke up this mornin’ with my mind
My mind, it was stayed on freedom
I woke up this mornin’ with my mind
My mind, it was stayed on freedom

I woke up this mornin’ with my mind
My mind, it was stayed on freedom
Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah

Walkin’ and talkin’ with my mind
My mind, it was stayed on freedom
Walkin’ and talkin’ with my mind
My mind, it was stayed on freedom

I was walkin’ and talkin’ with my mind
My mind, it was stayed on freedom
Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah…

Walk, walk, walk, walk,
Walk, walk, walk, walk,
(With my mind on freedom)

Talk, talk, talk, talk,
Talk, talk, talk, talk,
(With my mind on freedom)
Hallelujah…

Additional lyrics by Ysaye Barnwell for Occupy:
“And we’re here to occupy…”

Some additional lyrics by Reverend Osby and SNCC:
“Ain’t no harm to keep your mind…”
and
“Doin’ the twist with my mind…”

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More Daily Peace Songs at our
Daily Peace Song tab: here

The Peace Song of the Day is a project of The Duke and Duchess of Peace, who recognize that the path to peace also includes ideas of freedom, justice, and harmony with the earth.

The fourteenth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace contains Thomas Merton‘s 1962 essay  The Root of War is Fear.  As we have seen in the essays by Muste, Day, Addams, Gandhi, and Penn, religious conviction can be a great motivator to speak out for pacifism. Adopting the contemplative life of a monk, seems to have propelled Merton outward into addressing war and violence.

The title of Merton’s essay remind me of what the Duchess always says, “That which is not love, is fear.”   Like Fromm’s essay of the prior week, Merton diagnoses the especially American idea that the only way to peace is through nuclear war as being a form of mental illness.

Merton immediately questions what is a Christian to do in a world where violence is considered to be the only answer. He quickly turns aside the choices of resigning oneself to the inevitability of the situation, using it as a reason to preach Apocalypse, or celebrating a nuclear victory over Atheist Communism.Merton finds there is only one appropriate response for a Christian:

That task is to work for the total abolition of war.

Merton sounds a call for all Christians to make their opposition to war and violence to be their prime activity, and to live by the principles of peace and nonviolence.

Merton traces the turn to violence as a rootlessness based in a loss of faith in God:

At the root of all war is fear, not so much the fear men have of one another as the fear they have of everything.

Merton finds that it is an unspeakable hatred of ourselves that causes us to hate others.  We exaggerate their wrongs in order to disassociate ourselves from our wrongs. Such dissonance breeds violence as the only tool available to resolve our dilemma.  We rationalize by destroying the other, we will free ourselves from our self-hatred. Merton is most frightened by the reality that the world powers have institutionalized this psychopathy.

Merton finds the only way back to sanity and peace is to recognize the good and evil in all of us.  That means accepting that some of our ideas are illusions and that some our enemies ideas are motivated by good.   He answers those that say we can only act if we believe in our righteousness, that we can only come to peace if we recognize that all of us have a piece of the answer and can only find the total solution by “working together.”

Merton turns to the power of prayer to move humanity in the right direction.  He does not expect it will turn the morals of those in power.  Merton merely hopes they will prevented committing a “fatal error.”  He looks to God to teach people to love each other, even if they consider the other to be evil.

For only love — which means humility — can exorcise the fear which is at the root of all war.

Merton questions why why mark our postage with the phrase “pray for peace” while spending billions on weapons.  He questions what we really believe in if the atheistic communists build the same weapons we do.  He does not question the power of prayer when it bolsters our actions, but questions what we are really praying for when our actions contradict our prayers.

It may make sense for a sick man to pray for health and then take medicine, but I fail to see any sense at all in his praying for health and then drinking poison.

Merton’s prayer for peace is not only for the “Russians and Chinese” to turn away from making war, but more over for his own country to do so also. But he finds that none of them really want peace at all.

To some mean peace merely means the liberty to exploit others without fear of retaliation or interference.

Merton finds that people are baffled why their prayers for peace are answered by war.  He finds that God has answered their prayers with what they asked for.  They meant war when they asked for peace, and they got it.

If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed –but hat these things in yourself, not in another.

Related articles

• Fromm: Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament (peacecouple.com)
• Nonviolence: Muste’s Getting Rid of War (peacecouple.com)
• Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: The World Speeds Up(peacecouple.com)
• Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: Toward Sociability (peacecouple.com)
• Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: A New Social Contract(peacecouple.com)
• War, Peace and Sunshine: Peace Song for 3/12/2012 (peacecouple.com)
• Albert Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: The Self-Deception of Socialists(peacecouple.com)
• Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: Parody of Revolution (peacecouple.com)
• Wallace’s Are We Only Paying Lip Service to Peace? (peacecouple.com)

In the US, Mother’s Day started out as a holiday about peace. Initially mothers of soldiers who died in both sides of the Civil War would meet to try to reconcile.  The most famous example of the peaceful intent of Mother’s Day is the Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe.  She is best remembered as the abolitionist, pacifist, and suffragist poet who penned the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The proclamation is at the bottom of this post. In between are some peaceful gift suggestions for your mother,

Let’s start with a peaceful way to wrap your present:

Flowering gift wrapping paper that can be planted after it wraps a gift! 

This is cutting edge in the recycling industry. Our plantable seeded paper is made of 100% recycled paper. The following are just some of the wildflower seeds embedded in the paper: Corn Poppy, Clover, Calendula, Plain Coreopsis, Baby’s Beath, and Baby Snapdragon, Cornflower, Bishop’s Flower, Flax Scarlet and Blue, Daisy Shasta, Gaillardia, Larkspur.

You get 4 large 24″ x 36″ sheets – enough for 8 shirt boxes. Comes with 6 gift cards plus a nest of raffia and instructions. This can also be used as tissue paper in a gift bag or box.

From:

The Duchess couldn’t wait until Mother’s Day to give this gift. She gave it to all the Mother’s in her family on Valentine’s Day.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art book Art & Love: An Illustrated Anthology of Love Poetry celebrates the spectrum of love with each book section title taken from the initial poem:

• My-ness (Milosz)
• Oath of Friendship (Anonymous)
• Go, Lovely Rose (Waller)
• Let Me Count the Ways (Barrett Browning)
• The Mess of Love (Lawrence)
• Yesterday He Still looked in My Eyes (Tsvetayeva)
• The Marriage of True Minds (Shakespeare)
• Give All to Love (Emerson)

The Duchess and I enjoy reading each other poems from this collection, and viewing the photos of the accompanying art from the Met’s collection.  An anonymous poem from ancient India that the Duchess enjoys from this collection is titled Although I Conquer All the Earth.

Although I conquer all the earth,
Yet for me there is only one city.
In that city there is for me only one house;
And in that house, one room only;
And one woman sleeps there,
The shining joy and jewel of all my kingdom.

She also loves the concept of loving one’s soul that is recounted in When You are Old by William Butler Yeats.

From

Mother’s Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

“Ohio” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young  is the Peace Song of the Day for May 4th. Today is the 42nd anniversary of the shootings of nonviolent anti-war protesters at Kent State. During the late ’60s, the music of CSNY (Chicago/We Can Change the World, Long Time Gone, Cost of Freedom) reported on the events of the day better than the TV news. We could use someone like them to write “Fallujah” and “Oakland” today.

Nash (L) and Crosby (R) play Occupy Wall Street

Ohio
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
(one stanza)

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Today’s Peace Song of the Day is dedicated to the memory of Adam MCA Yauch who took the celebrity of his musical frat-boy persona, and used it to promote peace and justice

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More Daily Peace Songs at our 
Daily Peace Song tab: here

The Peace Song of the Day is a project of Duke Augustus and Duchess Susanna, The Duke and Duchess of Peace. The Duke and Duchess recognize that one of the paths to peace is to find soulful and nonviolent entertainment, and to express oneself with art and song.

Related articles

• Living with war everyday: Peace Song for 4/2/2012 (peacecouple.com)
• Horror grips us: Peace Song for 3/15/2012 (peacecouple.com)
• The End of the War in Iraq?: Peace Song for 12/15/2011 (peacecouple.com)
• Peace Song for 12/1/2011: Getting The Holiday Spirit (peacecouple.com)
• Teach your children well: Peace Song for 11/30/2011 (catch-up) (peacecouple.com)

“My Guitar Gently Weeps” by George Harrison is  Peace Song of the Day for May Day, May 1st.  The song was first recorded by The Beatles.  Today, a phalanx of guitars, marching in the Occupy Guitarmy,  of part of May Day celebrations. (Information at the Occupy Guitarmy website: here.)  Also the track is in honor of the Duchess’ Tearwater Tea Party for May Day.  Harrison credits the inspiration for the song to the I Ching.

This version is from the Concert for Bangladesh that Harrison organized.  He is backed on drums by another former Beatle, Ringo Starr.  Harrison’s good friend Eric Clapton provides the guitar solo as he did on the original. The fifth Beatle, Billy Preston, is on keyboards.

My Guitar Gently Weeps
George Harrison
(a verse)

I don’t know why nobody told you
How to unfold your love
I don’t know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.

I do love this version from the 2004 Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame induction for so many reasons.  George Harrison’s fellow Travelling Wilbury‘s Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne play along with Steve Winwood and Harrison’s son Dhani.  And let’s not forget the heart-breaking solo at the end.

Santana‘s guitar into reminds me of a mandolin on his version, and India.Arie‘s vocal’s add another dimension. Come to think of it I saw the aforementioned Winwood open for Santana.

And finally this blazing instrumental version from Jake Shimabukuro. and here is our first Peace Song of the Day by a Hawai’ian Ukele player

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More Daily Peace Songs at our 
Daily Peace Song tab: here

The Peace Song of the Day is a project of Duke Augustus and Duchess Susanna, The Duke and Duchess of Peace. The Duke and Duchess recognize that one of the paths to peace is to find soulful and nonviolent entertainment, and to express oneself with art and song.

The thirteenth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace  contains Erich Fromm‘s 1960 essay  The Case for Unilateral Disarmament.  Fromm was a psychoanalyst and a member of the Frankfurt School.  He co-founded the anti-nuclear organization SANE, which as named after his 1955 book, The Sane Society.  SANE is now part of Peace Action.

Like Muste and Wallace, Fromm argues that the safest path to security is unilateral disarmament.  Not surprisingly, Fromm approaches the discussion from a psychological perspective.  To start with he pushes aside the question of whether disarmament is unilateral or mutual.  Instead, he reaches for the question of what the reaction of the opposing side will be to disarmament. He rather dryly states that

it is unfortunately true that political leaders can rarely be trusted

Fromm’s purpose is not to demonize political leaders; he argues that the human nature causes them to bifurcate their personal moral beliefs from their morality as institutional leaders.   He finds Hitler to be personally immoral, but the Russian [sic] leaders to be moral in their personal beliefs. 

Just as Fromm criticized Freud’s theories for being warped by cultural misogyny, I would caution us to be aware of our own myopia before accusing the other of being immoral in their political actions.   Often the actions of the other are a rational, moral defense to our inability to recognize the threatening nature of our actions.  For instance, the Soviets placed nuclear missiles in Cuba after the US placed nuclear missiles in bordering Turkey.  Or a more recent example of Iran continuing with anti-US saber-rattling because the US has filled the countries surrounding Iran with US military bases.

I also have difficulty with excusing the immoral actions of political leaders. I have too often experienced this “lesser evil” mindset, and find that in the long-term it only leads to a greater evil.

Returning to a psychological perspective, Fromm diagnoses the US foreign policy as suffering from a paranoid delusion.  The US is constantly focusing on the possible negative outcome, no matter how unlikely, instead of the sane focus on probabilities. I hesitate to accept this differentiation as being entirely objective.  Too often the US political leaders couch the sane course as too improbable to even discuss.

I do like how Fromm attacks the mischaracterization of a unilateral disarmament position.  He has found that unilateral disarmament has be mislabeled as “submission and resignation” or “cowardice or surrender”  He finds the unilateral disarmament to be “an act of courage and resistance”  The same analysis can be applied to pacifism overall.  Fromm finds it as likely that nonviolent resistance will repel an attack as will violent resistance.  And he finds that nonviolent action to be more likely to save democracy than the use of “thermonuclear weapons.”

Fromm takes on the theory of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and its supposed basis in Christian theology that life can only exist in the willingness to die.  He honors the idea that the willingness to die must exist in resistance, including nonviolent resistance, but he does not acceptance the need to die because of

the results of stupidity and lack of imagination, with the willingness to stake the future of mankind on a gamble.

Fromm’s life-long emphasis on free will makes his explanation of why unilateral disarmament is not “soft of communism” particularly elegant.  His finds the weakness of the communist state to be in its emphasis on the primacy of the state while the power of the democratic state is the primacy of the individual.  Unilateral disarmament moves the power of the fate of humankind from the weapon controlling state apparatus back to the individual, thereby undercutting the theory of the communist state.

Fromm admits the risk in unilateral disarmament, but he saw the countervailing risk of world-destroying nuclear war as making it

imperative to shake off the inertia of our accustomed thinking, to seek for new approaches to the problem, and above all, to see new alternatives to the present choices that confront us.

Related articles

• Nonviolence: Muste’s Getting Rid of War (peacecouple.com)
• Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: The World Speeds Up(peacecouple.com)
• Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: Toward Sociability (peacecouple.com)
• Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: A New Social Contract(peacecouple.com)
• War, Peace and Sunshine: Peace Song for 3/12/2012 (peacecouple.com)
• Albert Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: The Self-Deception of Socialists(peacecouple.com)
• Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: Parody of Revolution (peacecouple.com)
• Wallace’s Are We Only Paying Lip Service to Peace? (peacecouple.com)