We have a time for purity. It's the primaries. And that time is over. Now it's about electability until one or the other guy gets elected. Then we can transition back into threats and attacks when our guy does badly.

For nearly two decades, there was a nonviolent army, an army of satyagrahis, organized along military lines.  It was made up of Pashtun people of the then Northwest Frontier of the British Empire, now Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same places where the Taliban remain active today.  They were called Khudai Khidmatgars, Servants of God, or Red Shirts because of the color of their uniforms, and were established by Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Badshah Khan, an associate of Gandhi's.

Badshah Khan started building schools for his people, girls as well as boys, in 1910 and by 1930 there were enough graduates to make up the Khudai Khitmatgars.  The organization lasted until 1947 when it was outlawed and disbanded by the Pakistani government.  

Nonviolent Soldier of Islam:  Badshah Khan, a Man to Match His Mountains by Eknath Easwaran
Tomales, CA:  Nilgiri Press, 1984/1999
ISBN 1-888314-01-x

Vinay Gupta, developer of the Hexayurt Project, a $200 shelter that can be built in about two hours, has a new idea:

The Global Swadeshi Network is a group of people examining infrastructure and technology from a "right-livlihood" perspective, based on Gandhi's concept of swadeshi - "self-reliance, or standing on your own two feet."

He wants to combine Gandhi's Goals with Fuller's Methods as he explained in his vision of the future, "The Unplugged":

Gandhi's model of "self-sufficiency" is the goal: the freedom that comes from owning your own life support system outright is immense. It allows us to disconnect from the national economy as a way of solving the problems of our planet one human at a time.

 
Solar IS Civil Defense
Like this solar LED light and AA battery charger

or this solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radio, similar to the ones US and NATO forces have distributed in Afghanistan.

Solar IS Civil Defense
and, after all,  
we are at war.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mahatma Gandhi

Clinton ran the race backwards.

First she declared victory, then she decided to fight, then she was laughed at for her "new math", and now she's being ignored.

But perhaps if Superman could spin the earth backwards, reversing the space time continuum...

Key ideas are missing, as far as I can tell, from the rhetoric of these great leaders.  And, since the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, I think if we leave out any vital links, our chain of progressive policies will not move the world forward.  We must include these vital links, and they must be strong.  These vital links, these key ideas, are below the fold.

My friend Ira had his photo in the NY Times today, with his old friends.

There's more...

I've had this one brewing in me for a while.  In the last few weeks I've watched the movie "Bobby" and the documentary "The U.S. vs. John Lennon".  And last night I watched CNN's special about Dr. King's assassination.

What two things do the following people all have in common?

Buddha.  Jesus Christ.  Abraham Lincoln.  Mahatma Gandhi.  John F. Kennedy.  Martin Luther King.  Robert F. Kennedy.  John Lennon.

They all "preached", in one form or another, the gospel of hope.  They preached the gospel of peace.  They preached the gospel of unity.

And every single one of them was murdered.