Fighting is not the solution: Peace Song for 4/16

Posted on April 16, 2012 by susanna

“Fighting Is Not The Solution“, performed by Brett Dennen (and friends), is the Peace Song of the Day for April 16th. This song can be found on an album of children’s peace songs, put together by The Mosaic Project. Grown-ups will probably also enjoy this song — and some of the other songs on the album, too. You can get Children’s Songs for Peace and a Better World through CD Baby: here.

The song has a great chorus, with simple words of wisdom: “Fighting is not the solution…
Try conflict resolution.”

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Broadcast your objection: Peace Song of the Day

Posted on February 3, 2012 by susanna

“Final Straw” by Michael Stipe/REM is the Peace Song of the Day for February 3rd. While this song does not name or assert “peace”, still, it is a good song about what a person of peace needs to do in a time of war.

“As I raise my head to broadcast my objection…”

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The ultimate song about nonviolence: Peace Song for 11/12

Posted on November 12, 2011 by susanna

“Take It From Dr. King”, by Pete Seeger, is The Peace Song of the Day for November 12th. This song is the ultimate celebration of nonviolent activism for social change. It tells the story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, the bus boycott, and The Civil Rights movement. It also has the somewhat tense, but poignantly necessary line, “Drop the gun.”

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Gandhi’s Faith in Nonviolence

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Augustus

The seventh chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace contains Mohandas Gandhi‘s short 1930 essay My Faith in Nonviolence. This essay was written in the middle of his participation in the struggle for India’s independence from Britain from 1915-1947.

The essay was written in the same year as the Purna Swaraj Declaration of the Independence of India by the Indian National Congress. The declaration was followed by Gandi’s 24 day Dandi Salt March. At the end of the march, Gandhi, and the followers that joined him along the march, made salt from sea water and refused to pay the British Salt Tax. This civil disobedience and tax protest was copied throughout India and brought made civil disobedience into a popular movement in India. Gandhi’s use civil disobedience was strongly influenced by Thoreau’s essay of the same name that we earlier discussed.

In this short 2-page essay on Gandhi’s Faith in Nonviolence. He starts out from the universal concept of the “law of love” is the solution to the “law of destruction”. He then applies it India by explaining how phenomenally successful nonviolence has been, and how quickly and widely it spread through the country. Continue reading →

Feelings and Friendship: Peace Song of the Day for 10/12

Posted on October 12, 2011 by susanna

“How To Save A Life” by Fray is the Royal Peace Song of the Day. The song is beautiful and soulful. The video is full of images of real people showing the full range of emotions from fear, sadness, and grief to happiness, joy, and release.

Why is this a peace song? Being in tune with your own feelings, and understanding how important feelings are to yourself and others, is an important key to Nonviolent Communication.

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Power of Nonviolence Buddhist Anger: Peace Book Chapter 1 of the Week 9/19/11

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Augustus

We continue from last week with the The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace provides us with the Peace Book Chapter of the Week. As you remember we discussed last week the introduction by Howard Zinn titled Retaliation. We now move to the first section of the book which is entitled: Pre-Twentieth Century. The first, very short chapter is written by the Buddha, and is entitled: Let a Man Overcome Anger by Love.

For hatred does not cease
by hatred at any time,
hatred ceases by love

The reading starts with a series of aphorisms about how you are bound by what you put forth. It reminds me of the saying that slavery chains both the master and the slave. Or Gandhi’s response about how he was trying to save England by freeing it from holding India in bondage. The third set of aphorisms set here as a pull quote remind me strongly of Dr. King’s August 16, 1967 “Where Do We Go From Here?” when he spoke out against poverty: Continue reading →

Power of Nonviolence Zinn-troduction: Peace Book Chapter of the Week 9/12/11

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Augustus

The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace provides us with the Peace Book Chapter of the Week. You might have noticed this a slightly different concept. Duke Augustus is paring down the Book of the Week to just a chapter to make it more interactive. We hope that you will join in a discussion of the book as we move through it together chapter-by-chapter. Please post your thoughts, reactions, comments, corrections and additions to the comment section of each of these posts.

War is terrorism,
magnified a hundred times.

Normally, Duke Augustus would give an introduction a cursory discussion, and begin the first discussion of the book, but when the Introduction is written by the late Howard Zinn attention must be paid. Zinn is primarily know as a historian whose best selling A People’s History of the United States is an antidote to the sanitized grade school history. Duke Augustus is particularly partial to the graphic novel adaption, A People’s History of American Empire. Zinn’s Introduction to The Power of Nonviolence is even more important to discuss considering that the opening lines are so amazingly timely: Continue reading →