 May 2002
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Mouth-to-Mouth Resuscitation Jean Gerard is an Orange Grove Meeting Friend and a contributing writer to the Pasadena Weekly, where the full text of this piece appeared on April 18, 2002. In contrast to the Muslim prisoners in Cuba who are said to be sewing their lips together to maintain silence under interrogation, our government is destroying both the freedom and the meaning of speech, not only by discouraging criticism, but by abusing language beyond belief in order to obfuscate policies which they have decided to institute, in order to fight a war the outcome of which is problematic in itself. Reasonableness is being systematically destroyed in the name of "security," by, on the one hand, putting fear into the hearts of citizens in order to lash them into continued support for an ill-defined "war on terrorism," and on the other hand, installing all kinds of "Surveillance" regimens, plus denial of justice under the guise of "patriotism." The ever-growing acceptance of propagandistic speech displays naivete and cruelty. For instance we are openly talking about the "marketing of conquest," and about "expanding the theater of the war," and about the "incredible accuracy" of our weapons. The slang and understatement we permit our military to use in naming weapons also reveal our callousness; bombs are named "Daisy-cutters" and "Bunker-busters," for instance. Language always leads action, and the language of peace, which might make inroads into this crazy war mentality, is never allowed to surface publicly. After years of this it begins to seem that, in truth, " war is inevitable"--always justified by special circumstances, of course.
Altogether the thoughtless war-talk being used now is so
confused, absurd, and misleading, so ludicrous and exaggerated,
that a thinking person all but loses consciousness in the attempt
to come to terms with it. One almost wishes for a return to the
good old days of the Tower of Babel. 
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