From the editor's desk

We sat next to a poet at a dinner the other night, and remarked that Peacework had received more tender, angry, heartfelt poems since September 11 than during the entire last decade--an exaggeration to be sure, but not wildly inaccurate. He replied that what he was feeling too raw, and that he hadn't been able to produce any poetry yet. To be sure, there has been marvelous writing rising from the ashes; we start out this issue with a taste of it--"The Algebra of Infinite Justice" by Arundhati Roy. As we emerge changed from our grief and shock, we know the poetry too will change.

The hard, prosaic work that precedes the poems is definitely happening: people are grappling with basic ethical questions, with what defines security in the face of terror, and with the fate of our cherished duty to dissent.

Government Center, Boston, October 8 © Pat Rabby

We asked Quaker and peace studies scholar Michael True to wade into the on-going conversation about how Augustine's "Just War" doctrine might apply to this war, and, indeed, whether it ever applies. We present sober, creative thinking from researchers at the Worldwatch Institute about recovery and what constitutes safety beyond that enforced by the muzzle of a gun. We turned to veteran organizer Mike Prokosch to lay out a work plan for the activist movement, newly energized at Seattle, already mobilized for global justice, now that it must widen its vision and shift its strategies.

We focus in on the dangers. Will liberty be the first casualty of the pursuit of liberty? Will the guns pointing at terrorized, oppressed, and angry people carry "made in USA" labels? Is our historical memory so short that we abandon the treaties and principles we learned from the mustard gas floating over the trenches of World War I?

Afghanistan is facing what experts call "a large complex emergency," and the United States is not coping well. Experienced relief workers and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights say that seven million people are likely to die from cold and starvation this winter. Meanwhile spin-makers in Washington warn starving, desperate Afghan people to mistrust aid from humanitarian NGOs. The US drops a day's supply of peanut butter and jelly, but manages to burn a Red Cross warehouse holding food and blankets. This isn't regrettable; it's criminal.

Pay attention to the final three articles in this month's Peacework. The Pentagon is using this war to continue trying out its "Forward Operating Locations"--high-tech facilities for controlling regional uprisings. US diplomats are playing 19th century hegemonic power games in south Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and east Asia, but today's contestants have nuclear capabilities.

Meanwhile at home, funds are shifted away from cities and states, infrastructure and public health facilities are crumbling, and workers are losing jobs, while the Bush Administration rewards airlines and the insurance industry, reduces taxes for the wealthy, and wants to strip mine and drill for oil in national parks.

This is a strange picture, and we are getting some very strange language to describe it. Homeland. Office of Homeland Security. The echo that summons up for us comes right out of "Triumph of the Will," the epic film tribute to Hitler's Germany--Fatherland. It's time to be afraid, and it's time to get to work. We'll need our poets.

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