Foreign Affairs
Complexity and Collapse
Wed, 03/10/2010 - 15:36 — Dave Culver- Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice.
- Empires on the Edge of Chaos
The Savage State, from Thomas Cole's The Course of Empire (1833-36) Collection of the New-York Historical Society
Niall Ferguson, Foreign Affairs
There is no better illustration of the life cycle of a great power than The Course of Empire, a series of five paintings by Thomas Cole that hang in the New-York Historical Society. Cole was a founder of the Hudson River School and one of the pioneers of nineteenth-century American landscape painting; in The Course of Empire, he beautifully captured a theory of imperial rise and fall to which most people remain in thrall to this day.
The Price of Peace and the Cost of Discipleship
Sat, 03/06/2010 - 15:06 — Dave CulverReligious Nonviolence in a Warlike Culture
Rick Bernardo, Network of Spiritual Progressives
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Amelia Kroeger
Join us for an inspiring joint meeting with Every Church a Peace Church, Jackman Room, Plymouth Congregational Church, 1900 Nicolett Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55403 (Enter parking lot from Franklin Avenue.) 612-871-7400
6:30 potluck – bring a dish to pass. We hope to make this a low waste potluck, and encourage potluckers to bring their own reuseable plate, cup, silver & napkin. For those who cannot bring their own setting/s, disposables will be available.
7:00 Welcome, followed by - Kathy Kelly: “The Price of Peace and the Cost of Discipleship: Religious Nonviolence in a Warlike Culture”
Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org <http://www.vcnv.org/> ), a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. As a co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, Kathy helped form 70 delegations that openly defied economic sanctions by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq from 1996-2003. Kathy and her companions lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing.
More recently, she visited Gaza and Pakistan, writing eyewitness accounts of war’s impact on civilians. Kathy was sentenced to one year in federal prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites (1988-89) and served three months, in 2004, for crossing the line at Fort Benning’s military training school.
Summary: The War in Afghanistan: Week of March 7
Fri, 03/05/2010 - 15:08 — Dave Culver5 New Items including:
- Kucinich Forces Congress to Debate Afghanistan
- Cost of War is budgetary "Elephant in the Room"
David Culver, ed., Evergreene Digest 
Mr. Fish
Read Huffington Post's Afghanistan Big News Page, Huffington Post
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Thomas Sklarski
Some News So Big It Needs It's Own Page
Kucinich Forces Congress to Debate Afghanistan, Robert Naiman, Common Dreams
Full Moon Over Haiti and Chile
Fri, 03/05/2010 - 09:08 — Dave CulverA remarkable aspect of the recent Haitian and Chilean earthquakes was the swift mobilization of military force to protect property instead of persons. In some long-ago world, maybe one of my imaginings, the well-muscled men in camouflage would have offered a hand instead of a gun. Watchers of New Orleans, Haiti, and Chile might well suspect that they are merely one disaster away from the full violence of their states.
“The earth had never trembled here, in this soft point of land that leans forward toward the sea: the city is build on spongy soil, that of the coral plain; the region had never known volcanoes nor vents, nor columns of smoke, nor geysers, nor solfataras....”
Jose Marti, from the essay "
The Earthquake at Charleston"
published in The Nation,
September 10, 1886
The Same Wasteful Reconstruction Practices in Iraq Are Happening in Afghanistan
Thu, 03/04/2010 - 17:19 — Dave CulverIn the past 8 years, the U.S. has allocated $51 billion to rebuild Afghanistan. But tracking that money sometimes seems as challenging as finding the leaders of the Taliban.
AlterNet.org
