PeaceDocs |Video

PeaceDocs | Video | Israel’s Shministim

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:20:28 -0500

A year ago, tens of thousands demanded the release of Israel’s youngest prisoners of conscience, the Shministim.
These 12th graders chose prison time over serving in the occupying Israeli army, and became heroes to the Israeli peace movement.
Last Chanukah, just one day after Tamar Katz was released from solitary confinement, the young Shministim gathered to celebrate and to decide how to thank the 20,000 (and counting) Jewish Voice for Peace members who wrote letters, attended rallies, and wrote articles on their behalf.
This is the message they wrote together.
Dear friends and supporters,
During Chanukah the festive of lights, we, the Shministim, would like to take a moment to thank you for all you've done for us and for our struggle.
While we sit down with our families and light the first candle of the holiday, symbolizing the rebellion against an occupying army, some of us are still behind bars, denied the freedom to celebrate the holiday with their loved ones, denied the right to freedom of thought and political consciousness.
During this dark period of consecutive jail terms, military trials and attempts to break our beliefs, you were our light Each and every one of you who helped with the campaign, who sent a supporting letter, who sent the link of the website to a friend.
You've let our struggle be heard around the world, the letters, the postcards and posters, the demonstrations, all of those actions fulfilled our wildest dreams.
We would like to thank you once again and wish you all a happy and free holiday.  in solidarity, The Shministim

PeaceDocs | Video | Obama’s Nobel Prize Speech

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:00:51 -0500

President Barack Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, given him shortly after his inauguration in the hope of what he will do to curb the world’s drive to destruction. Elected in large part because of the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. and on the hopes of the American peace movement, the president acknowledges his debts, but also his duties as chief of state. Is there still such a thing as “just” war? Is the just war even a useful theory in today’s world? Is nonviolence truly useless against the Hitlers of the world? Recent history suggests not. How will these tensions play themselves out in Obama, his career and in the course of American politics and culture? What fruits will this tree bear? Stay tuned.

PeaceDocs | Video | Derrick Jensen

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:48:24 -0500

One of the most attractive aspects of the peace movement of the 1960s was the way it mixed nonviolence, art, imagination, satire and mockery as it confronted the powers of the world. In this it shared much with the humanist peacemakers of the Renaissance, like Erasmus and Thomas More.
Today’s peace movement offers much of this variety and the same subversive — and constructive — imagination. One very good example is the work of Derrick Jensen, nonviolent anarchist and environmentalist.

PeaceDocs | Video | Faith, Reason, and Nonviolence

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:38:56 -0500

As William James noted in The Varieties of Religious Experience, the test of all religious beliefs lies in the lives they produce: “you will know the tree by its fruits.” A comparison of these speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Christopher Hitchens, for example, might lead one to embrace religious belief without further discussion. But for a fine, and entertaining, discussion of the place of faith, engagement, and justice in the world, see Terry Eagleson’s Faith, Reason and Revolution.