Mark Johnson's blog

We are so deeply saddened by the tragic taking and horrible loss of life at Ft. Hood, Texas. Our grief-filled hearts go out to all who are personally touched by this madness.

Fellowship of Reconciliation USA Position on Gaza Freedom March December 31, 2009, includes encouragement to understand the UN Fact Finding Mission now known as the Goldstone Report linked below.

The key to peace in the Middle East is restoration of international law and the recognition of the right of both Palestinians and Israeli Jews to live in peace and security side by side.

A powerful story of courage, maturity and reconciling spirit is being shared by two teenaged women from Israel who have, with eight other youth, submitted a letter of refusal in response to their obligatory draft call to the Israeli Defense Forces. They say they can not in good conscience serve in the occupation of territory and the oppression of another people as soldiers.

Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, a Freeman Fellow of FOR, spent a week in Lebanon following his presentation at the Interdependence Day meetings in Istanbul, Turkey in September. Following three days of visits in Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, Rev. Sekou presented a lecture exploring connections between events in Baghdad, Beirut and New Orleans. A transcription of the lecture will be available in a few days, but attached is a jazz-video-montage of his visit: http://www.mydeo.com/videodownload.asp?YID=303&CID=276222

Anne Barstow Helps Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Celebrate Anniversary

One of the privileges of my position is to represent FOR in many gatherings that call us to our needed work through the voices of those who have lead the way, some still hard at work, others who have now passed on. The past few weeks have been rich with such people.

The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship has been hosting a luncheon with peace makers periodically since its move to Stony Point Center last year. Anne Barstow was the featured guest in September. She provided a biographical story that began when her then boyfriend (later fiancée and husband), Tom Driver, invited her to a reception with FOR Journey of Freedom riders in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For a 17-year-old Southern white girl to attend a biracial gathering was nearly unthinkable in 1947, but she went and had her introduction to nonviolence through the lens of the civil rights movement.

Kathleen Foster, a documentary filmmaker who produced Afghan Women: A History of Struggle, and two women interviewed in the film, Fahima Vorgetts and Fawzia Afzal Khan, were visibly frustrated last Friday night, September 11, 2009. The three women, along with much of the audience, expressed their emotions at the reminder of how much worse conditions are in Afghanistan today than prior to the invasion of United States and NATO forces – and the earlier, long proxy war between the Soviet Union and the United States, fought with “Afghan blood” – as the film says. 

Stupid is as stupid does. It’s a cliché. Calibrate? I prefer the bluntness of the truth.

The fact and act of the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his own home by a police force presumably sensitive to the issues of race and power is worthy of continuing reflection and commentary. There may not be much to learn that’s new, but there is a good deal to be reminded of about the way racial stereotypes and triggers produce regrettable outcomes. Outcomes that reflect on-going prejudice and inequality; fear and ignorance in some white Americans and a tragic anger in some black Americans.

The news this week that the U.S. Senate hearing on the nomination of New York Appellate Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will begin one month from now, on July 13th, provides an opportunity for reflection and organizing. Judge Sotomayor gives a strong positive first impression as a candidate and potential member of the U.S. Supreme Court, and her nomination also demonstrates this Administration’s capacity to garner interest and support.

[Ed. Note: Tomorrow begins the Global Week of Action Against Cluster Bombs (May 29 - June 4). At a press conference in Geneva, Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action will launch the week by releasing Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice, a 288-page report produced for Landmine Monitor on the new international treaty banning cluster munitions.]

Today I sent this message to New York State Senators. I encourage you to contact your Senator with a similar message.

This is a nod to the Christian Science Monitor. As a subscriber for nearly 35 years, following my service as a conscientious objector in Lebanon where John Cooley was reporting from at the time, I’ve watched it go through many changes. The latest is to “a weekly of global news and ideas.” This week’s issue, the fourth or fifth in its new format, opened a window into the evil of warfare that took my breathe away, though it told me little I didn’t already know. It was the trick of the good correspondent, in this case Dan Murphy, to find just the right quotes to give the story its “lifeline.”

The story was titled “Drones as weapons of war” (volume 101/ Issue 90, p. 12).

Drones’ great advantage is that they keep pilots and soldiers out of harm’s way. They are also much cheaper to fly than conventional planes.