TRY THIS: Practice NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION. Begin by listening with empathy and compassion to what you are being told. Make observations of what is being done by whom without assuming motives or causes. Share how you feel and what you need. Make a request for what you would like to have happen. Visit the Center for Nonviolent Communication website to learn how to follow these steps and where to get more information. Let us know how this works for you by commenting on the Metta Blog!

“Student Strikes Make History ” by Will Parrish: Written by one of the organizers of the antiwar strike at UC Santa Barbara on February 15, this piece is a fabulous history of the power of student strikes in the past century.

“February 15th’s strike against war at UCSB follows in a long tradition of similar student actions that have made history across the globe. The successes of these strikes have included radical social reforms, overthrown dictators, and even the end of unjust wars…..For over a century, student strikes have proved to be one of the most powerful and effective means by which citizens in any nation can organize at a grassroots level to foment meaningful social change.”

For more reflections on the Santa Barbara strike, check out an essay by protest organizer Darwin Bond-Graham.

The myth of Muslim support for terror

February 23, 2007 edition – The Christian Science Monitor
The common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews.
By Kenneth Ballen

WASHINGTON

Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.

The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland’s prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that “bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians” are “never justified,” while 24 percent believe these attacks are “often or sometimes justified.”

Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world’s most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are “never justified”; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.

Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?

Continue Reading »

MoveOn.org invites you this week to come be a “witness for peace” in a Berkeley gathering to meditate on peace in this time of violence in Iraq Click here for more information.

Reporters Without Borders
Iran | 7.03.2007

Reporters Without Borders today called for the immediate release of 25 women journalists and feminist activists held in Tehran’s Evin prison, who, on the eve of International Women’s Day, began a hunger strike to protest against their continued detention. Continue Reading »