Tag Archives: Anti-war movement

RIP Jonathan Schell, anti-war anti-nuke, pro-Occupy activist

The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan SchellIn December 2013 post entitled Schell: Complete Disarmament is the only Sane Path, we wrote about an excerpt from Jonathan Schell‘s 1982 book The Fate of the Earth which forms the nineteenth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace . 

Below are the obituaries from the AP and Democracy Now!   Continue reading RIP Jonathan Schell, anti-war anti-nuke, pro-Occupy activist

Peace Index: Daily stats for the peace movement

Peace Index. Daily stats for words such as “peace”, “nonviolence”, and “anti-war”. How much are Americans talking about peace today?

See ongoing chart of daily peace index numbers under **asterisks** at the bottom of this post.

“When will the wars end?” I wonder that each day, and, I reflect on secondary questions, such as: “Is anyone succeeding with peace work lately?” and “Is the peace movement thriving?”.

I had always wished there was a way to check up on these concerns, a way to check the pulse of peace. I wanted to find statistics on peace, just like people can find statistics on the stock market, the price of gold, or, even, the casualties of war. I did a little research, and I could not find a number or index that answered my questions. There are some very good peace indexes. Though, the ones I found are only calculated yearly, or they only changed when big events happen.

So, it is still impossible to predict exactly when the wars will end. Though, we have devised a system to give some answers about the status of peace and antiwar sentiment in the United States. The system is The Daily Peace Culture Index for the United States [DPCIUS], which has the nickname PAXi. The PAXi number will be posted prominently at Peace Couple every day. [Well, we try!] We hope you will seek it out when you do your daily searches for news, information, and updates on the state of the world. Continue reading Peace Index: Daily stats for the peace movement

Nonviolence: Muste’s Getting Rid of War

The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of PeaceThe twelfth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace  contains A.J. Muste‘s 1959 essay  Getting Rid of War.  The essay leads off the third section of the book:  The Cold War and Vietnam. Muste’s life was a journey toward pacifism and through politics and religion.  He was a labor organizer, anti-war leader and civil rights mentor.

Muste seeks a path to “abolish war and the benumbing threat of nuclear destruction.”  He defines the problem as having two “characteristics”: 1) the cancerous growth of weapons of mass destruction, and 2) the political intransigence between the Western and Eastern blocs.  The first problem has not been resolved.  The second has only changed players, but the fight over resources has not.  Continue reading Nonviolence: Muste’s Getting Rid of War