CODE PINK

[Nick Pronsolino]

CODEPINK is a women initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education, green jobs, and other life-affirming activities. CODEPINK rejects foreign policies based on domination and aggression and instead calls for policies based on diplomacy, compassion, and a commitment to international law. With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to no-violence.
CODEPINK has over 250 chapters across the United States with a group here in Portland. You can learn more about CODEPINK at http://www.codepink4peace.org/
I highly encourage all to check out this fabulous group of women- and men- doing some really awesome stuff around the country. I feel they really exonify the Living Beyond War spirit that we have learned about.

[Winslow Myers]

Hi Nick,

While I admire the feistiness, courage and initiative of Codepink, I'm not sure, from the admittedly superficial picture I have gotten via the web of the national organization, that they really do exemplify the principles of Beyond War. They actually seem to be coming from a place of anger. I don't make these observations from any position of moral superiority or even judgment, but more to have a dialogue.

[Anne Millhollen]

It is such a fine balance between being assertive and posing the others as your enemy.

[Winslow Myers]

Assertiveness, or creative initiative, certainly is the point. There would be amazing, and probably quite rapid, change if millions hit the streets together to witness for the end of war in Afghanistan, or truly comprehensive health coverage for all Americans. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." (Edmund Burke I think).

Someone like our Attorney General faces the excruciatingly difficult question of what to do about torture perpetrated by the previous administration and even by the present one, torture that seems to include torture of children. Pursuing past torture could cause a partisan split that would put Obama's progressive initiatives at risk. Not pursuing it sufficiently means opening the door to having it happen again.

[Anne Millhollen]

Yes, I don't know how Truth and Reconciliation Commissions manage to carry it off.

I think not pursuing past torture also has one other negative consequence. For those of us who view torture as immoral, although we can appear to be pragmatic about politics, our spirits are damaged by our country having perpetrated it. An investigation with an end goal of restorative justice rather than punishment would be cleansing.

[Winslow Myers]

Right, and that's why there's something very appealing to me about Senator Leahy's idea of a Truth Commission, where the only thing that would get you in legal trouble would be perjury.