A Brief History of Conscience against Empire
Bartolomé de las Casas was asleep And then he woke up Sophie Scholl was asleep And then she woke up Daniel Ellsberg was asleep And then he woke up Waking up Can cause you trouble…
Category: People Power
There’s a Difference
Last night, twenty of us gathered to discuss Mev’s The Struggle is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation. People ranged in age from 20 to 65; some of us knew Mev personally, others had read…
Our Wars
On David Harris, Our War (Random House, 1996) Today there exist tremendous and unprecedented possibilities for knowing the reality of our world just as it is, with all that it has in it of anti-kingdom…
Deep Listening
“I’m sorry. We Americans have never taken responsibility for what we did.” –Lady Borton Lady Borton worked for the American Friends Service Committee in South Vietnam from 1969-1971. A decade later, she assisted Vietnamese boat…
Julian Assange in Conversation with John Pilger
“You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can’t lead to a good conclusion.” –Julian Assange,…
The Struggle Is One
“In Portuguese, a luta, or in Spanish, la lucha, is the struggle for survival, the struggle to bring about the Reign of God: a piece of bread, a plot of land, a just wage, a…
Litany/2 (¡Presente!)
The following was near the end in the original version of The Book of Mev. Ignacio Ellacuría, engaged intellectual, credible witness, Fearless announcer of God’s Kingdom . . . ¡Presente! Ordinary eco-friendly folk, hallowers of…
364 Other Days
People think they are making a big contribution by voting But don’t forget—a year has 364 other days: To come together face to face To get to know each other To name the problems that…
The On-Going Responsibility: Cleaning the Flag
In 1985 during the terrorist contra war in Nicaragua, Brazilian bishop Pedro Casaldáliga visited and engaged in what he called the ministries of the border and of consolation. His reflection on these ministries: “The visits…
Subversives
In the New Directions collection, Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems, Ernesto Cardenal includes an “Epistle to Monsignor Casaldáliga (whom Mev Puleo interviewed in her book The Struggle is One, and from which I quoted…