Resources

A bibliography of sorts, of resources for strategies and actions for peacemaking – to open a web page listed, just click on the blue words:

WEB RESOURCES

Another Poster for Peace website. Download free, colorful images and slogans to spice up any office, home, or protest sign.

Anti-War.US. More free peace art!

On Earth Peace, the Church of the Brethren’s agency devoted to peacemaking in the world.  The website includes information for youth, for pastors, for Sunday School teachers, for activists, and for everyone.  OEP page also sells some stickers and buttons and other such stuff, including the infamous bumper sticker reading “When Jesus said ‘Love your enemies,’ I think he probably meant don’t kill them.”

Bayard Rustin: Brother Outsider. Rustin is one of the most under-appreciated peace-maker and civil rights leaders of the 20th century, in large part because the movements he helped shape couldn’t handle his homosexuality, his socialism, and his flirtations with religious thought other than Christianity. He is one of the US’s finest citizens, and his life illustrates all the complexities of struggling for peace and justice in a world hostile to such visions.

Resources for taking timely action for peace issues can be found at the Action page of this blog.

BOOKS

Stafford, William. Every War Has Two Losers. Collection of quotes and reflections by pacifist poet Stafford, written over five decades in the 20th century.

Anxious About Empire: Theological Essays on the New Global Realities. Edited by Wes Avram. I find the contribution by Stephen Chapman entitled “Imperial Exegesis: when Caesar Interprets Scripture” especially insightful and motivating.

Beinart, Peter. The Good Fight: Why Liberals — And Only Liberals –Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. Great exploration of the sort of story liberal foreign policy leaders need to start telling (again) if their policies are to have any strength in moving the citizens’ hearts as much as the conservatives’ do.

Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. Theory for a new world order, beyond nation states.

Proverbs of Ashes, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. GTU professors writing about violence and redemptive suffering and the search for what saves us. This book will rock your theology of atonement. Watch out.

Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory, by Lisa Cahill.

Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, by Matthew Scully. This guy was/is an advisor/speechwriter to GW Bush, and he writes about mercy toward our animal brethren instead of the violence of dominion we currently foster in our inter-species relationships. It’s yet another look at how violence against non-human animals and Earth feeds into the violence against other people (see Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat, for more on the connections between sexist violence and meat eating).

MUSIC

David Rovics. Jim Page. Amy Martin. Danny Dollinger. Laurel Brauns. Chumbawumba’s album on revolution. Tracy Chapman (Iloveyousomuch!).

OTHER

Handel & Haydn Society Chorus released an album entitled “Peace: A Choral Album For Our Times.” Some of the most prolific and eloquent classical music in my sound library. Dig it.

“But is it Art: The Spirit of Art as Activism” was introduced to me by Professor Darcy Berkeley at Pitzer College back in 2001. It was edited by Nina Felshin. I consult its wisdom when traditional activism (read: marching, chanting, poster-making) no longer feels sufficient. Peep the contribution by Richard Meyer entitled “This IS to Enrage You: Gran Fury and the Graphics of AIDS Activism.” Gran Fury had a few ideas of how to put censorship and silent complicity on blast. Perhaps we should follow suit…

FAVORITE PEACE QUOTES

“This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote: ‘Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.’ “

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Beyond Vietnam’ address, 1967, to Clergy and Laity Concerned

 

Post your comments with suggestions of more to add!