For Justice & Peace

[Jundo]

We can have acceptance and work for change (non-acceptance) at the same time.

We can have stillness inside, yet get up and get moving actively for change at the same time.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shoki]

I woke today with the news that my hometown which is right next door to where I live now had uniformed policemen joining in solidarity with the protesters. This was greeted by people smashing police cars and setting them on fire. One step up, one step back. I saw the videos of this taking place on the very same streets that were burned and looted 52 years ago. The same streets where my father as a policeman had cinder blocks aimed for his head by arsonists on rooftops while he tried to save local merchants from having their businesses burned. The merchants moved out. Storefronts were left abandoned. Businesses and factories moved away. Residents left for the suburbs and homes were divided into apartments owned by out of town landlords who couldn't care less about anything but getting their money. Radical race baiters of all stripes riled people up with hate and fear. Border lines were drawn. My high school, once a jewel of education became a violent, dangerous nuthouse. The city has never really recovered.

This is the result of violence. This is the result of people refusing to believe that there are problems in the first place.

Gassho
STlah
James

[Doshin]

We can have acceptance and work for change (non-acceptance) at the same time.

We can have stillness inside, yet get up and get moving actively for change at the same time.

Gassho, J

STLah

Yes. Your teaching the last 5 years have helped me better understand.

Thank you

Doshin
Still learning, still sitting

[Kevin M]

... maybe some discussion of what's going on, and who is "right and wrong" would belong in an ordinary discussion on the internet, but maybe we have to look beyond a bit. So, I might suggest that we have to keep somehow focused on seeing something transcendent of all this.

Amen (and emphasis mine)


Kevin
ST

[Meian]

i understand, Jundo. Thank you.

gassho,
meian sat today.

[Doshin]

I said too much for here so deleted it.

Sitting is best.

Be Safe, Be Well

Doshin
St

[Onka]

We can have acceptance and work for change (non-acceptance) at the same time.

We can have stillness inside, yet get up and get moving actively for change at the same time.

Gassho, J

STLah

Gassho
Onka
ST

Sent from my SM-A205YN using Tapatalk

[trafalger888]

This struck me today quite strongly in light of current events that we have been experiencing

Sat Today

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

Edited to fix img

[Meitou]

If folk want to take some positive practical action, or be better informed on some of the core issues at the heart of this crisis, a couple of people I follow on social media have published some useful links.

https://linktr.ee/curiouswithjvn

Jonathan Van Ness

https://angelatcarr.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/black-lives-matter-what-can-i-do-as-a-writer/

Gassho
Meitou
Sattoday lah

[Cooperix]

If folk want to take some positive practical action, or be better informed on some of the core issues at the heart of this crisis, a couple of people I follow on social media have published some useful links.

https://linktr.ee/curiouswithjvn

Jonathan Van Ness

https://angelatcarr.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/black-lives-matter-what-can-i-do-as-a-writer/

Gassho
Meitou
Sattoday lah

Brilliant Meitou!
Just what I need.

Gassho
Anne

~lahst~

[Jundo]

A nice interview with an historian about why and how peaceful civil disobedience is often much more effective than violence ...

Nonviolent resistance proves potent weapon

When Erica Chenoweth started her predoctoral fellowship at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 2006, she believed in the strategic logic of armed resistance. She had studied terrorism, civil war, and major revolutions — Russian, French, Algerian, and American — and suspected that only violent force had achieved major social and political change. But then a workshop led her to consider proving that violent resistance was more successful than the nonviolent kind. Since the question had never been addressed systematically, she and colleague Maria J. Stephan began a research project.

For the next two years, Chenoweth and Stephan collected data on all violent and nonviolent campaigns from 1900 to 2006 that resulted in the overthrow of a government or in territorial liberation. They created a data set of 323 mass actions. Chenoweth analyzed nearly 160 variables related to success criteria, participant categories, state capacity, and more. The results turned her earlier paradigm on its head — in the aggregate, nonviolent civil resistance was far more effective in producing change.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/sto...%20behind%20it.

Gassho, J

STLah

[trafalger888]

Thank you for this Jundo. This really helped me articulate the value of non violence in this situation to many that believed the violence had justification.

Gassho

Colby

Sat today



Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

At first I thought it is not a Buddhist teaching, but she is speaking of the reasons for protest with non-violence.

Yes, there is language and there is anger (I would like to think it "righteous indignation" as the is opposed to the violence).

https://youtu.be/MYbXlUx97NI

Gassho, J

STLah

[Ryumon]

A nice interview with an historian about why and how peaceful civil disobedience is often much more effective than violence

The thing is, the protesters aren't violent, for the most part. There are agitators, and, as I'm sure everyone has seen, plenty of police attacking people who are doing nothing at all.

The thing about civil disobedience is that it works when it has an effect on the economy (cf Rosa Parks; Apartheid; etc.). Currently, with 40 million unemployed, black people can't even go on a mass strike, and with so many businesses closed, their protests won't have any effect on the economy.

Actually, what is working now is the fact - sadly - that the authorities are perpetrating violence on essentially peaceful demonstrators. I don't think you can call actual demonstrations "civil disobedience" but they are having a very strong effect. The fact that everything is filmed means that it's easy to show all the police brutality, which is enhancing public support of the movement.

Gassho,

Kirk

sat

[Mac]

Thanks for saying something Jundo. I wish that more Buddhist communities would speak out than those that already have.

Gassho,
Mac