WASHINGTON, D.C. – Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry (D-MA) wrote the following op-ed this morning in the New York Times entitled “With Iran, Think Before You Speak.”

The grass-roots protests that have engulfed Iran since its presidential election last week have grabbed America’s attention and captured headlines — unfortunately, so has the clamor from neoconservatives urging President Obama to denounce the voting as a sham and insert ourselves directly in Iran’s unrest.

No less a figure than Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, has denounced President Obama’s response as “tepid.” He has also claimed that “if we are steadfast eventually the Iranian people will prevail.”

Mr. McCain’s rhetoric, of course, would be cathartic for any American policy maker weary of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hostile message of division. We are all inspired by Iran’s peaceful demonstrations, the likes of which have not been seen there in three decades. Our sympathies are with those Iranians who seek a more respectful, cooperative relationship with the world. Watching heartbreaking video images of Basij paramilitaries terrorizing protesters, we feel the temptation to respond emotionally.

There’s just one problem. If we actually want to empower the Iranian people, we have to understand how our words can be manipulated and used against us to strengthen the clerical establishment, distract Iranians from a failing economy and rally a fiercely independent populace against outside interference. Iran’s hard-liners are already working hard to pin the election dispute, and the protests, as the result of American meddling. On Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry chastised American officials for “interventionist” statements. Government complaints of slanted coverage by the foreign press are rising in pitch.

We can’t escape the reality that for reformers in Tehran to have any hope for success, Iran’s election must be about Iran — not America.

And if the street protests of the last days have taught us anything, it is that this is an Iranian moment, not an American one.

To understand this, we need only listen to the demonstrators. Their signs, slogans and Twitter postings say nothing about getting help from Washington — instead they are adapting the language of their own revolution. When Iranians shout “Allahu Akbar” from rooftops, they are repackaging the signature gesture of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mir Hussein Moussavi, the leading reformist presidential candidate, has advocated a more conciliatory approach to America. But his political legitimacy comes from his revolutionary credentials for helping overthrow an American-backed shah — a history that today helps protect protesters against accusations of being an American “fifth column.”

Iran’s internal change is happening on two levels: on the streets, but also within the clerical establishment. Ultimately, no matter who wins the election, our fundamental security challenge will be the same — preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. That will take patient effort, and premature engagement in Iran’s domestic politics may well make negotiations more difficult.

What comes next in Iran is unclear. What is clear is that the tough talk that Senator McCain advocates got us nowhere for the last eight years. Our saber-rattling only empowered hard-liners and put reformers on the defensive. An Iranian president who advocated a “dialogue among civilizations” and societal reforms was replaced by one who denied the Holocaust and routinely called for the destruction of Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran’s influence in the Middle East expanded and it made considerable progress on its nuclear program.

The last thing we should do is give Mr. Ahmadinejad an opportunity to evoke the 1953 American-sponsored coup, which ousted Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and returned Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power. Doing so would only allow him to cast himself as a modern-day Mossadegh, standing up for principle against a Western puppet.

Words are important. President Obama has made that clear in devising a new approach to Iran and the wider Muslim world. In offering negotiation and conciliation, he has put the region’s extremists on the defensive.

We have seen the results of this new vision already. His outreach may have helped to make a difference in the election last week in Lebanon, where a pro-Western coalition surprised many by winning a resounding victory.

We’re seeing signs that it’s having an impact in Iran as well. Returning to harsh criticism now would only erase this progress, empower hard-liners in Iran who want to see negotiations fail and undercut those who have risen up in support of a better relationship.

"Compassionate Conservative" was the oxymoronic phrase used by Bush II in his 2000 campaign. It was tried in Texas under Rove/Bush - as a strategy for funding "faith-based" friends to take over social programs, just as in funding "corporate-based" friends to take over the other functions of government. By banding together the fanatics with the neocons, with some cheating added in, they could come to power for awhile. By 2004, Bush had to ask Rove, "Are we doing Compassion again?" By then, they didn't bother, as they had the Terror Card to play, along with the old Guns, Gods & Gays wedge issues.

COMPASSION is a deep awareness of and sympathy for another's suffering.

What is compassionate about two terms which resulted in a quagmire in the middle east with millions dead, maimed or homeless, and a near-depression that is resulting in foreclosures, teacher layoffs and other misery?

Now, some wingnuts have called Obama's criterion for "empathy" in a judge a "code word."
Even Clarence Thomas has written that he is "empathic" and David Brooks writes in the NY Times that a judge without empathy cannot be objective, but here is an opposing viewpoint from the Wall Street Journal. Conservatives are divided on "empathy" - not their strong point in the first place.

Empathy is understanding and entering into another's feelings. Sounds alot like compassion. Let's check the thesaurus, and we find that both empathy is a deep awareness of other's feelings and compassion is a deep awareness of another's suffering. A splitting of hairs in Bizarro World.

In the middle east, we recall Islamic Fundamentalists like the Taleban destroying the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan and now, their brethren in Pakistan are harassing Sufi Mystics. The militants bombed the tomb of Rahman Baba, a revered Sufi mystic. Many of us are not scholars of religion and though we hear about Sunnis, Shiites and factions therein, we do not really understand the ramifications or history of the region enough to make much more than general statements. Yet we know that religious disagreement is a huge component of past and present geopolitical unrest, along with struggles for land, resources and power.

Even a superficial reading of the literature of any of the major world religions will also reveal the following universals: greed, search for compassion, danger of extreme ego and prevalence of warfare among humons.

I recently read an essay by a Muslim moderate who said that the clash of civilizations is not just between religions but between moderate and fanatical sects within each religion. This could not be more correct.

(painting by D. Grieser)

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/04/buy_local_buy_v.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/04/buy_local_buy_v.html economy quality thrift Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:36:00 -0500 If you've been in any chain bookstore, you've seen them: massive piles of hardbacks by Stephanie Meyer with glossy black covers and simple titles (New Moon, Twilight, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn)that give no indication of what might be inside.

I've been ignoring this phenomenon for a while, but I was stopped short by an item in USA TODAY:

"Vampires rule:Twilight author Stephenie Meyer continues to dominate USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list. Sales of her novels accounted for about 16% of all book sales tracked by the list in the first quarter of 2009. That's about one in seven books."

Whoa! One in seven?

Newspapers are dying left and right, but vampires are flying off the shelves. Is there something about the late-Bush/post-Bush era that makes vampires so popular? Or is that blood-sucking sound coming from Wall Streeters downing $700 billion (and counting) of our tax dollars for a bailout so murky we don't even know where the money went?

Any Meyer readers out there? What do you think is happening? What country are we living in, anyway?

(Tip of the hat to Media Bistro)

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/04/if_youve_been_i.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/04/if_youve_been_i.html books culture meyer vampires Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:31:22 -0500 I have to confess that I rarely have the stomach to watch Limbaugh, Beck, Fox News, etc. For those of you who want to know what Rush is up to without having to sit through the show, Media Matters has started the Limbaugh Wire, an hour-by-hour critique of Rush's latest.

And then there is Glen Beck. Thanks to the comic genius of Stephen Colbert, I feel like I know everything I will ever want to know about Beck--Colbert leaves Beck's corpse on the floor. While I agree that the mainstream media often present a very distorted picture of the world, it is gratifying to know that there are popular shows on TV that can be funny and play smash-mouth politics at the same time.

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/04/colbert_guts_be.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/04/colbert_guts_be.html Find The Hidden Frame Beck Colbert Limbaugh rightwing media Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:40:14 -0500

John Lennon wall in Prague

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/03/the_wall_of_pea.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/03/the_wall_of_pea.html cool art peace and freedom Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:40:15 -0500

I may be a relative Luddite or perhaps a little antisocial, as I don't even give out my cell phone number much or use the thing other than for very specific purposes! I've been blogging for a long time, but MySpace and Facebook may be about as far as I want to take it and some of that has been experimental! These can be definite black holes of time consumption. MySpace offers infinite ways to personalize the page and Facebook lets people be pirates, throw food and be kids in many respects. Both have potential for political activity, artistic and musical networking and much more. I get invitations to join other social networking sites and now I delete them. I am maxed out. Do we have any idea how much data these people are collecting about us? Doesn't Rupert Murdoch own MySpace? Doesn't he own FOX News? Should we be wondering?

Now it's en vogue to "tweet" on Twitter and I have not figured it out entirely and am questioning whether to. Daniel Schorr (who is in his 90s but still comments at NPR) had kind of laugh at the idea this morning on NPR. "Why do people do it?" has asked, and the interviewer didn't seem to really have an answer! 140 keystrokes - that's how long a message can be! I can see text messaging someone but the whole world? Our "followers"? Or "following" someone? Can someone please explain this to me? I can't stay on top of emails!

I enjoyed reading what Lee Woodruff at Daily Beast had to say about it all:

How far are we from the minutiae of someone’s stomach virus, a lost button on a favorite pair of corduroys or, to steal loosely from the late John Updike, the announcement of a perfectly coiled bowel movement in the bowl after the morning’s first cup of Joe?

I do enjoy the fact that Greg Palast follows one of our blogs, and that I am a Facebook "friend" of people like Ann Magnuson and Max Blumenthal, who I think are intensely cool! It blows me away that these sites have people on them from all over the world! I may be reaching the breaking point though!

More from Lee (Is there a way I can be her "friend?!")

I don’t need to know that someone just visited their office vending machine for Doritos or that they are about to take their Shit-zu for a walk. I don’t want to know that kind of info about my own husband.

Again, who are these people who are Twittering back? If they are employed, shouldn’t they be (particularly in this economy) putting their noses to the grindstone? Shouldn’t they be concerned for their jobs, laboring away at their desks, working the phones, hopping to, rather than twittering away about last night’s bad Chinese food? And what if they aren’t employed? What if they are kicking about at home, maybe a wife or hubby just hanging out while the kids are at school, or someone in transit on a train or bus. Don’t these people have better things to do then telegraph their where-abouts? Isn’t there laundry to throw in, some real news to catch up on online or a good book to read? Books. Remember them? They came off a printing press. What about a little do-gooding in the community, English as a second language to teach, a PTO board to assist. How about, God forbid, an honest good old-fashioned moment of repose and reflection?

I am not embarrassed to post this and be all "uncool" and not Twitter (or is it "Tweet" ON Twitter?) So far I just can't face the fact of having a sea of messages on my cell phone or having to do anything social in real time (other than in person) and I don't have a great attention span in the first place! I can't even send pictures, which makes it a little too "wordy" for me, a little too "left-brained"!

More from Lee:

I’m not gonna go all retro on you here. I know I sound a bit like Archie Bunker. I’ll be the first to admit that instant communication has a premiere place in my universe. My BlackBerry enables me to stay slightly on top of the pile while out of the office. And I’m not saying I’m never, ever going to join Twitter—I learned long ago never to say never. But people—let’s use a little moderation here. Get back to your desks. Go read an article in the New Yorker. You remember those, don’t you? Magazines?

Except magazines are going monthly (US News & World Report), upscale (Newsweek), small (Rolling Stone) and newspapers are going online or extinct (SF Chronicle, Seattle PI, Rocky Mountain News.) Is it because everybody is too busy "communicating?" Actually, I think it's because of a drop in advertising revenue and the fact that everyone is on-line, but don't the social networking sites also expose people to a whole new level of overt and subliminal "targeted" advertising? Wasn't it just last week or so that Facebook's new Terms of Service which allowed them to keep all content indefinitely were challenged by users and had to be altered? We need to examine the social and political implications of every new change in communication technology. On the one hand, we talk about Big Brother, the Patriot Act and privacy - on the other, we like to enjoy being social creatures with a sense of connection in our busy lives. Where is the balance?

It was good to see someone I've been reading off and on for 20 years, and to hear of her permaculture and justice work, which she even manages to combine. For example, imagine coming up with composting toilets and the like for the G7 type protests over in Europe or wherever - then using the same technology to help victims of Hurricane Katrina! Starhawk is always where it's at!! Like when she met with shamans in South America and they came out of deep meditation realizing that maybe we did not have the TIME to stop global warming - maybe we were doomed - and she reminded them that witches and shamans can operate outside the normal realm of time!!

Starhawk talked about stories. The conservatives like stories that confirm people's sense of entitlement - endless expansion, globalization, the continuing tide of wealth lifting all boats. No tide keeps rising forever! Letting corporations roam free can't work and fraud is revealed daily, from Madoff's Ponzi scheme to sending youth to prison for kickbacks. Conservatives continue to stand behind policies that haven't worked, such as those of the neocons/"Chicago school."

She talked about how women, earth, minorities, workers were all devalued as "dark matter" vs the more cerebral and light and male corporate spirit. Yet she reminded us that "dirty could be good - to "go deep," "get down." She advocated new metaphors in which "balance" and emphasis on cycles were emphasized rather than "dark forces" or the "dark side" or "light being." She also spoke of a shift from objects to relationships, starting with our relationship with our self and then our community (so permaculture, buying locally, knowing what's around you.)

"We are mother earth's transition team," she said. The personal is political. We need to be "harpies" against war, killing and use of military rather than diplomatic solutions.

The most powerful moment for me came when she talked about women my age who were introduced to feminism in the 1970s and there was kind of a "woman good men bad" mentality. She wondered whether this had to do with the fact that for women my age (and hers), our fathers were veterans of WW2. As such, they were traumatized but had no way to socially process much of this. They were expected to be heroes in a glorious and their feelings and experiences were denied and repressed. Grief, loss, and fear were cut off and they became somewhat forgetful of events and distanced emotionally. For years, I had felt like it was just my father, who had "shell shock" and electroshock treatments at the VA, lost the ability to teach and never spoke much about the war. To think that it was a whole generation, and to think in terms of fatherhood as juxtaposed with their war experiences but collectively, was revelation to me. Starhawk concluded that trauma can disconnect, and that a shift to a world based on relationships is what we need.

On the personal level, she talked about how in consciousness raising groups, we would get together and talk about something, like "rape" and to do so was unheard of at the time. It would be surprising to find out how common of an experience rape, molestation and other exploitation actually was, and also to her this talked about aloud. The talking proceeded in a circle, without interrupting the speaker, to allow the quietest voices to be heard. I remember this! Getting the issue out in the open was powerful.

Beyond personal relationships, Starhawk advocated for extending relationship to community - to push against downsizing, pressures for productivity, lack of time off - against corporate culture. She reminded us that our wage had been flat since the 1970s, so women went to work, then hours got longer, then people started working two and three jobs, and finally they started to borrow money. It used to be possible to buy a modest house for around the same price as renting. Now people want mini-mansions with lots of square footage.

If we downsize and support our community, we are doing the opposite of globalizing as we are not serving first an abstract profit for someone far off. If you believe in killing off any aspect of the self of the world that you don't like, from pesticides for plants to "wars" for terrorists, you also kill off the "beneficials." Less hate is bred when we feed what we want to grow rather than killing what we don't want. (This line of thinking can easily be extended to events in the middle east.) The planet has people, not "haters" - we need to know their reasons and to listen - this is diplomacy. We are not small tribes anymore who can shut out outsiders - we need to draw a larger circle. Starhawk also advocated for saying "no" as well as "yes" - where "no" is the opposing of the wrong and "yes" is using ritual to action.

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/02/starhawk_evokes.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/02/starhawk_evokes.html Lakoff Obama Starhawk Women of Wisdom Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:18:25 -0500 I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

- Albert Einstein

Photo by D. Grieser

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/02/sticks_and_ston.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/02/sticks_and_ston.html best quote ever Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:31:24 -0500 I happened to hear Adam Davidson's piece on John Maynard Keynes today on Chicago Public Radio's "All Things Considered" on my local NPR affiliate. Adam Davidson is someone I relied on heavily when he was in Iraq as a business reporter, as it's possible to hear a certain edge in his voice even as he tries to be objective. He can also be read at "Planet Money" at NPR's site. He outlined how the theory behind the economic stimulus package we are about to endeavor upon is exactly that - a theory - from a Cambridge intellectual of the past. Critics say it has not been tested, and yet it seems to be all we have to try, as the competing supply-side theories have been discredited!

Here is the podcast link

Then I got this:

Email of the Day:

Unfortunately
We Are ALL one Banana Peel Away.

No Matter what our Current Situation is Today!

My 87 Y O Father has declared this a Depression, I believe him

Scar-Ree

Please talk about your situations, fears, hopes, ways of coping and dreams and let's support each other.

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/01/we_are_all_one.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/01/we_are_all_one.html depression dread economy future hope recession Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:49:49 -0500 I made about five videos while I was at this event, but saw this piece with photos and video later when I was at YouTube looking around.

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/01/the_pulse_of_pe.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/01/the_pulse_of_pe.html Dance Obama Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:46:50 -0500

I want to flash back on the incredible thousands of paintings all by one woman - Huong, originally from Vietnam. I saw them at the Peace Mural Gallery in Washington DC, the night before the Inauguration. As a young journalist, she came here on a refugee boat after the fall of Saigon and settled in Alaska, where she began to paint. The Peace Mural took fifteen years to produce and there are 8' by 600' worth of paintings! It is a war/peace collection and there are many places for viewers to add comments about peace. Collectively, the paintings have an impact quite like Picasso's "Guernica." (Huong is shown here with her daughter - my photo, then WaPo one - see also their story at this link) - the exhibit leaves DC 30 Jan. and will be staged elsewhere - there is info at the link if you know someone who could help bring it to your city.

In this amazing space, I also attended DanceObama: The Pulse for Peace. Karen Bradley wrote:

Over the next few days, change is a gonna come. The change is overt: a new President, a new administration, and it is as-yet-undefined. Some startling clues exist, however: pictures of dead children in Gaza horrify us, creating the clear loud message that brutality and carnage, no matter under what guise, are not to be tolerated. A pilot saves 155 people with calm and skill that reassures us that not all disasters end in total loss and that paying attention and thinking clearly actually works sometimes. A gay bishop and a rightwing preacher both celebrate a new government that is not catering to any one constituency but appears to want to cut a swath across all, and maybe even elevate the country to a higher moral ground, without privileging one belief system or lifestyle over another. The train rolled into town yesterday, bringing a newly-forceful but always thoughtful guy to lead the changes. He did not bring the change with him on the trip, nor will he deliver it to us with his inaugural address. But over the next few days, through music , art, dancing, sharing food and warmth, change will come to us. We will create it.

Karen is a good friend and Professor of dance, and has written a book about Rudolf Laban, who over a hundred years ago devised participatory dance events called "movement choirs," in wich each person contributed to a communal celebration of harmony. Here is some of the music which was used. First video shows an individual dancer that I liked watching, but many of the pieces were more communal and group-interactive, as in the second video.

Here is some of the music which was used: Sweet Honey in the Rock: “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For” Kanye West: “Love Train” Sly and the Family Stone: “Everyday People” Cat Stevens: “Peace Train” John Lennon: “Imagine” Johnny Clegg: “Life is a Magic Thing” Seal: “A Change is Gonna Come” (or any version) The Pointer Sisters: “Yes We Can, Can” U2: “Beautiful Day” Karen said she put the "Beautiful Day" in there for me, which was kind - it was the song most closely associated with John Kerry's campaign by many of us, and special. I like it when the guy yells "Dance therapists in the house?" at the end. The photos show Karen being interviewed and the two gentlemen with the Bush piece are Ben Doko and Josh Castle, from Seattle.

(A version of this appears at Silenced Majority Portal)

]]> http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/01/experiencing_th.html http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2009/01/experiencing_th.html art dance DC peace Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:44:16 -0500