(h/t ThinkProgress)

The Dalai Lama once said

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

I wrote that on a little card that stays on my desk as a reminder when I start stressing too much over the bobbleheads and politicos who forget that their games affect real people. I admit I'm not always successful in finding love and kindness in my heart. Especially for someone like Glenn Beck, who seems to want to instigate violence. Van Jones has even more reason to not find love or kindness towards Beck. After all, it was Beck who led the charge to get Jones out of the White House. But if you think that Van Jones is going to give Beck the satisfaction of being nasty, you got another think coming:

Despite the best efforts of Glenn Beck to ruin Van Jones, Jones is back, standing tall, a righteous man vindicated.

While receiving a prestigious award Friday night from the NAACP, Jones refused to lower himself to Beck’s level. Rather than giving Beck the tongue lashing he so richly deserved; Jones rose above the ugly, divisive, mean spirited little man that is Glenn Beck.

Rather than scorn, Jones instead offered Beck a message of love, and the country a message of hope and unity:

Last thing I want to say is this: To my fellow countryman, Mr. Glenn Beck. I see you, and I love you, brother. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. Let’s be one country! Let’s be one country! Let’s get the job done!

With that short, brief, powerful message of love and redemption, hope and promise, Jones destroyed Beck. The contrast could not be stronger: Beck is a petty and vicious snake in the grass, a vile serpent, a vessel of rumor, innuendo, and evil; while Jones is a hero, maligned but resolute, rising above Beck and the filth of the right wing smear machine.

Some times, the best revenge is turning the other cheek.

darkblack: 5 Is The Magic Number

Faithful Progressive : George Lakoff on Obama, Tea Parties, and the battle for our brains

The Rude Pundit: What is enhanced interrogation tecnique number 12?

MAL Contends: Gates calls Europe's anti-war mood a danger to peace

James Wolcott: The lunatics have taken over the salon

Newshoggers: Joseph Stack, frustrated American

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(Dr. Martin Luther King - words for bewildering times)

In 1967 The CBC aired a series of five lectures delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King as part of its ongoing Massey Lectures series. The last of those lectures was "A Christmas Sermon on Peace".

Needless to say, the message is as relevant now as it was then.

Dr. Martin Luther King: “Peace on earth this Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race.”

Yes, we are. Still.

From Imagine Peace:

The World March for Peace and Nonviolence.
Prague – November 3, 2009.

Thousands of people have gathered in Prague’s Wenceslas Square to participate in the biggest event in the country organized as part of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence: Harlem Gospel & SuperStar singing Imagine. It was the last and the biggest event that concluded a three day stay of members of the World Marchs Base Team in the Czech Republic. More...

Open Thread below...

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(Dodgy - after a brief respite of seven years, back together)

Actually, a reasonably well established band in the UK and ironically issued on an American label (A&M UK), Dodgy have been considered part of the Britpop wave of the 90s (i.e. Blur, Oasis) and having a number of charting singles they appear to be totally unknown here in the States. After an initial burst of success in the 90s, the band dissolved around 2001 and got back together in their original lineup in 2007 and are now touring and recording.

This track, Ain't No Longer Askin' is off their album Free Peace Sweet released in 1996 and climbed to #7 on the UK charts.

If you aren't familiar, here is a taste.

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From The Situation Room Sept. 24, 2009. Lady McCheney Matalin is still out there trying to say that George Bush's foreign policy made the world a safer place to live. What a completely ridiculous thing to say. Walk is what keeps peace in the world. No, "walk" is called starting wars Mary. Why CNN feels the need to continue to give this woman air time as though she has anything credible to say is beyond me.

BLITZER: Mary, let's talk a little bit about the substance, though. Do the folks and the leaders in Iran or North Korea or the Taliban for that matter or al Qaeda, do they fear President Obama?

MATLIN: Well, absolutely not. And what Paul just said is emblematic of how the Democrats think about foreign policy in general. That's demean our strongest friends our greatest allies, like the Australians, like the Polish, like the Czechs, like the central and eastern Europeans who are working so hard at democracy and just demean any kind of opinion.

Look, this is not some sort of partisan or right wing or Murdoch thought. Since the beginning of time the history of the world is that weakness invites provocation. And we have -- and talking is good and relationships are fine. But our allies need to know that they can rely on those relationships and that there will be consequences for the bad guys when the talk runs out and they're not doing the walk.

As for proliferation and chairing a U.N. committee, great. Oh, isn't that wonderful? It's the U.N. that wouldn't enforce 17 of its resolutions against Saddam in the first place, so big deal. He's chairing and talking in another instance.

But the proliferation security initiative of the Bush administration was responsible for quantum leaps in the reduction of proliferation and including the disarmament of Libya, the capture and detention...

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I'm one of the knitters who contributed to the "Radical Act of Knitting in honor of Mother's Day" organized by CODEPINK.

Open Thread below...

January 08, 2009 BBC World

From Bill Moyers Journal:

Bill Moyers sits down with Mark Johnson, the producer of a remarkable documentary about the simple but transformative power of music: PLAYING FOR CHANGE: PEACE THROUGH MUSIC. The film brings together musicians from around the world — blues singers in a waterlogged New Orleans, chamber groups in Moscow, a South African choir — to collaborate on songs familiar and new, in the effort to foster a new, greater understanding of our commonality.

Johnson traveled around the globe and recorded tracks for such classics as "Stand By Me" and Bob Marley's "One World" — creating a new mix in which essentially the performers are all performing together — worlds apart. Often recording with just battery-powered equipment, Johnson found musicians on street corners or in small clubs and they would in turn gather their friends and colleagues — in all, they recorded over 100 musicians from Tibet to Zimbabwe.

You can read the rest of the story and watch Bill Moyers' interview with Mark Johnson here.

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Stephen Colbert has some words of warning for the hippies out there. From The Colbert Report Nov. 18, 2008.

See, talking about peace and love shows weakness. That's why these days you only find the words peace and love where they belong. On stamps.

[snip]

I mean if you start loving your enemies pretty soon you're going to end up in a drum circle with Mahmoud Ahma-kumbaya-ajad. So be careful America. Peace and love are powerful ideas. If we start talking about them, we might actually get the hope and change that everybody keeps talking about.