MOANA NUI 2013
Peoples of the Pacific—Confronting Militarization, Resource Theft, Globalization & America’s “Pacific Pivot”
45 SPEAKERS/ 20 NATIONS: JUNE 1 & 2 Berkeley, Martin Luther King Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. [Scroll down or click here for more info]
UPDATED

EON Docs Screened at Moana Nui 2013
We are proud to let you know that our ‘Pacific issue’ documentary film productions (two PBS sponsored) spanning our coverage of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement in the ’80’s and ’90’s will be honored by being screened in Room 108 of the Moana Nui 2013 Teach-In this weekend in Berkeley.
As a preview:
You can check out the viewer below to come with us now to the days of Yesteryear when naive activists believed they could actually influence policy by intervening at the U.S. Congress and the U.N. with verbal and video testimonies.

In this 1986 archival video Right Livelihood Foundation founder Jakob Johann von Uexküll, late Greenpiece activist Sebia Hawkins, Mary Beth Brangan and Jim Heddle present verbal and video testimony in favor of Palau’s seminal nuclear free national constitution before the late Rep. John Seiberling’s House Committee.

Listen Up Bay Area People!
Welcome to the Pacific Century. U
Just a reminder…we live on the Pacific ocean, you know, all that water out there. It’s a region that is re-emerging as a major geo-strategic focus point for corporate trade regimes, military deployments, ecological devastation and grassroots activism. Granted, it’s a complex, even bewildering, mix of factors, actors and flashpoints – the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement; Obama’s ‘Pacific Pivot;’ disputes over oil-rich ocean areas between the Japanese and Philippine island chains and the Asian mainland; drifting radioactive Fukushima debris; declining fish stocks, rising sea levels – to name just a few. Pacific issues impact us all.

The key issues confronting humanity are present in mesocosm in the Pacific Basin (circled as it is by the literal volcanic ‘Ring of Fire’ of potentially catastrophic seismic activity on all Pacific shores).

From Jeju Island to TPP boardrooms, from Vanuatu to North Korea, from the Straits of Malaca to the South China/Philippine Sea, human rights and ecological systems are under seige by the forces of profit-making without regard for national sovereignty, human rights or the life-support systems of the planet.

If the Pacific and its challenges – which powerfully affect our collective future – are unfamiliar to you, you need to attend a wonderful opportunity to become informed and empowered – the Moana Nui Teach-In on Pacific issues being presented June 1 and 2 by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) in Berkeley, CA at the Martin Luther King Auditorium, 1781 Rose St..

International panels featuring 45 speakers from 20 nations will address the following issues in the two-day teach-in.
Pacific Resource Wars
Globalization – Impacts from ‘Free Trade’& Development Agreements: TPP, APEC, ASEAN, EU-ACP, Pacific Plan, et al.
Indigenous Rights, Local Sovereignty, and “Free, Prior & Informed Consent”
Militarization—The New “Pacific Pivot”
60 Year Anniversary of Endless U.S. War in Korea: To Control the Pacific
Hegemonic Battles for Pacific Domination: U.S., China, Russia, Indonesia and Japan vs. Pacific Peoples
Pacific Island Resistance Movements
Cross-Pacific Collaborations—A New Pacific Monitoring Authority & Other Proposals

Detailed Program here.
Tickets here.

Download poster here and please distribute widely.

An Evolution of Consciousness
Guest blog by Rachel Gertrude Johnson – EON Board Member

Not Just a ‘Hallmark Holiday’
Many of you already know this, but I always like to take the opportunity on Mother’s Day to remind myself and my friends about the progressive roots of Mother’s Day- that it started as an occasion to honor women working for a better world, and to encourage women to join our voices together to work for issues about health & survival & peace, about not sending our sons off to fight the sons of other mothers in other places. It was definitely not a greeting card moment, or a day for mom to lie in bed to be fed, but a day to get out there and speak our minds about the issues of our times.

In 1858 in the heat of pre-Civil War patriotism, Julia Ward Howe wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” glorifying the mythical glory and heroism of warfighting.

But, she evolved over time, for which we can be grateful!

Twelve years later, Howe had become so distraught by the death and carnage of the Civil War that she called on Mother’s to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their “Sons killing the Sons of other Mothers.”

“Arise, then, women of this day!”
In 1870, she wrote “A Mother’s Day Proclamation”, which helped to conceptualize the first North American Mother’s Day. The movement grew over time, and in 1914 Mother’s Day was finally made a day of national observance in the US. Most people today don’t realize that Mother’s Day has radical roots, that it is really about peace and the honoring of women’s values. And even if you are not a biological mother, this day is for you, too.

For one, we all have mothers, whether or not they are still alive, and we all have the sacred charge of protecting the earth, the mother of all of us. This is a day to let the feminine, nurturing side of us speak out, and I’m talking about men, too! It was a joy this morning to read this to my son Orie, who really seemed to take it in, and who gave me a supportive hug as I asked to bow out of the pancake breakfast and be allowed to stay home to finish sending this out.

So here is the amazing “Mother’s Day proclamation”, which called women to pacifism and political resistance:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:

“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.

“We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war.

Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace.
~Julia Ward Howe

Please forward this to whoever you can think of who would appreciate it, or who might be open to learning about the roots of Mother’s Day.
And here’s hoping that we can all find some new meaning in this day.

Love to all,
Rachel

ps…and here’s a photo from yesterday of Mary Beth Brangan and me, celebrating Mother’s Day in advance; I couldn’t be more fortunate than to have Mary Beth as a soul-sister and co-worker in speaking out about the issues we care deeply about! (Photo by our wonderful feminine-supporting Jim Heddle.)

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