Home » Blog » Progressive Values Stories: Mimi Kennedy on Nonviolence
Blog for America
Progressive Values Stories: Mimi Kennedy on Nonviolence
Linked to groups: Capitol Area Progressives (CAP)
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Martin Luther King, Jr
Mimi Kennedy is an actress and Advisory Board chair of the Progressive Democrats of America. I interviewed her at a conference in Los Angeles, California. She told me that nonviolence is her most important progressive value. She told me the story about having painfully learned the importance of truth and transparency at a young age as well.
Nonviolence is a flop. The only bigger flop is violence. Joan Baez
Progressive Values Stories: Mimi Kennedy on Nonviolence
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hBLK8uKRIV0
I’m chair of the Progressive Democrats of America, National Advisory Board chair, an actress. I was on the sitcom Dharma and Greg, which culminated a long career in New York and Hollywood. Dennis Kucinich asked me to accompany him on his presidential campaign, which was like a shoestring campaign, so little TV power. That let to the Progressive Democrats of America which was the progressives in the party wanted to change the party in 2004.
Now I find myself very embroiled in Democratic politics, and I’m happy to be here, although I was raised Republican in Rochester, New York, but the Vietnam War changed all that for me.
The core value is borrowed from Martin Luther King – nonviolence, which means everything but violence. The core value is not to commit violence against life on earth -- people certainly, and increasingly the environment as well. Conflict is inevitable, violence is not inevitable. Human beings will always be in conflict with each other for psychological reasons, if not for reasons of scarcity of resources. So we have to learn to adjudicate our conflicts with nonviolent means.
The progressive movement is to strengthen the laws to make more just the laws by which human beings live, and I think the U.S. Constitution is a pretty great law by which we live, based on the Magna Carta. Right now it’s under attack from the right wing ideologues who pretend to know who God is. They say the primacy of God and the soul – I was raised Catholic – I’m all for the soul and God. But that law needs men and women’s hands to make it just.
Progressives believe thou shalt not kill. They take it seriously. That’s their aspiration and their modus operandi. And life is mysterious, nobody’s perfect, but that is their aspiration. I believe conservatives believe you can definitely kill when you must, and increasingly, they are killing for reasons that have to do with selfish, immoral preservation of not only their lives but their lifestyles, and that’s based on fear, and that’s giving in to the worst of humanity.
We are all afraid. It’s what we do about it that matters. But it all comes from childhood. I have to laugh, but the only spanking I ever got in my household was for lying at age three. And boy I remember that. So I got it. Don’t lie. Never going to get you anything good.
And honesty and truth and transparency are very important to me – no matter how much you may want that piece of candy. I snuck into the kitchen and got into the stash that my mother, a believer in rewards – I think she was toilet training my little brother, and I knew where that candy was. I took a piece, came out, my father said, “Did you just eat a piece of candy?” He said “Did someone say you could have it?” So he gave me the out. I said “who?” He said “ugh, oh”. So I gave the name of the babysitter. I knew not to say mother, so I said our babysitter Carmen. He looked at me and he knew he had a moment of how am I am going to teach this girl. So I got a whack. That was very unusual in my family. It was hurtful.
Edwin: How did that relate to progressive values?
Answer: He didn’t kill me. It did hurt me. I learned that someone who loved me very deeply and was trying to raise me right. He did not want me to lie, and was not going to lie to me. I think that’s a good way for people to behave to each other.
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. . . . which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals. Martin Luther King, Jr.
More About Nonviolence
Definition:
- peaceful resistance to a government by fasting or refusing to cooperate;
- The theory, doctrine, or practice of peaceful resistance to a government by fasting or refusing to cooperate.
http://www.onelook.com/?w=Nonviolence
Nonviolence is a philosophy and strategy for social change that rejects the use of physical violence. As such, nonviolence is an alternative to passive acceptance of oppression and armed struggle against it. Practitioners of nonviolence may use diverse methods in their campaigns for social change, including critical forms of education and persuasion, aggressive civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action, and targeted manipulation of mass media.
Sometimes, the term "nonviolence" is often linked with or even used as a synonym for pacifism. However the two concepts are demonstrably different. Proponents of nonviolence may reject violence for purely practical reasons (e.g. "the other side has all the guns"), whereas a pacifist may reject the use of violence on moral or spiritual grounds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolence
Questions To Ponder:
- What are you thoughts and feelings about nonviolence?
- Do you have a personal story or anecdote of how you learned some insight into this value?
- How does this progressive value differ from conservative values?
- How have conservative values failed?
More Progressive Values Stories at:
http://progressivespirit.com/InterviewStories/ProgressiveValuesStories.htm
Edwin Rutsch
What Are Progressive Values? Documentary Project
http://ProgressiveSpirit.com
and Study Group
http://www.dfalink.com/group.php?id=2285
Rosie looks like she's about to give someone some grief with that baseball bat.
I did as you requested puddle. Thanks for the continuing love bat for Howard. He needs $$.
Is that bat aluminum or wood?
51.
Monica Smith
Wed, 04/09/08
Reply to this
SOCIALIZE THE FUNDING--PRIVATIZE THE CARE
===================
EVERYBODY PAYS - EVERYBODY IS CARED FOR - all citizens - and non-citizens (legal or not) needing emergency care if they are within our borders.
People who want to stay with the status quo coverage of their private insurance situation or who want non-government coverage can get rebates and tax credit.
There needs to be state of the art computer systems for automatic verification of such rebates and tax credits.
It is all quite simple but will need lots of time, money and preparation to execute.
I love Mimi Kennedy. She is a very kind person.
We all know that McC is a warmonger, right? Just like Putzco, right?
Well, this is what came outta the BO campaign and I don't see how the dems are gonna win with this softball nothing approach. They both should be calling McC a warmonger, which is what he is.
The BO campaign is making it easier for the repugs to *win.* Like I said, he wants to please all the people all the time. That's a serious flaw. HC also gives Mc. passes.
**************************
"After numerous inquiries from Obama’s traveling press, the Obama campaign eventually responded with a comment. “John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such. He’s a supporter of a war that Senator Obama believes should have never been authorized and never been waged,” traveling press secretary Jen Psaki said in a written statement."
http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/04/05/obama-campaign-mccain-is-not-a-warmonger/
Jo, on topic or not, HC uncovered an ugly truth. Our Congress is neutered and won't be part of any decision about putz's diabolical treaty with Iraq (and god knows who else) Was anyone in the CM listening?
That whole group should have rioted when that little *fact* was disclosed. Complicit and neutered...all of them, with few exceptions.
Gore at the convention if there's to be a continuation of the species. Gore/Dean or Gore/Obama.
Oregon beekeepers are pleading for help in finding out why the colonies are dying. This is the human race dying off and our critters are oblivious it seems.
Perhaps they know it's gone so far that it's too late to stop the wreckage.
"You don't know the half of it."
Pelosi
I wonder who's bright idea it was to have two glass ceiling dems running against each other for the nomination. We're seeing how bad an idea it is so I'm thinking it must have come from the fascist side of the repug party....IOW, the MIC and CM. JMO
seashell :-)
It was their own idea to run. Nobody makes that decision for any candidate.
seashell wrote "Our Congress is neutered and won't be part of any decision about putz's diabolical treaty with Iraq."
Oddly, she was quite able as a U.S. Senator to flex her muscles in Congress when it came to the President's request to authorize a military invasion of Iraq. It would seem that Congress has a great deal of power, depending on whether members oppose the administration or support it.
We all know that McC is a warmonger, right? Just like Putzco, right?
Well, this is what came outta the BO campaign and I don't see how the dems are gonna win with this softball nothing approach.
I'd much rather have a diplomatic leader than a multiple personality like Hillary. he would gain nothing by calling McCain a warmonger - it's been proven time and again that the dem primary voters don't like it when they go negative, so it would be dumb to do that! he's making the same points with more carefully chosen words - and that's why he's winning where Howard lost - he's playing to his strengths and avoiding Dean's biggest pitfalls. I'm pretty sure hell be plenty 'hot' once he's running in the general.
Florida women are being well-cared for and controlled by the Florida taliban-like legislature
Women of Florida to be tightly controlled by men in suits.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1980
"“Now, if you’re afraid of the facts or afraid of the truth than you’re going to hide that. I don’t want to hide it; I want it to be available,” Webster said of ultrasounds that vividly show the growing life in the womb.
Noting that Florida’s informed consent law already requires ultrasounds be performed on pregnant women and girls seeking abortions in the second and third trimester, Webster rhetorically asked, “what’s the difference between the last six months and the first three? It’s just a matter of where that fetus in the development is. And this is an opportunity to see first hand. … This is better information than a piece of paper.”
Brilliant move, guys. Also if a rape victim wants an abortion, they have PROVE they were victims.
HC is the only candidate who has said that the U.S. should boycott the opening ceremonies.
Where's BO on this?
For you to recommend. http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/24840...
"It was their own idea to run. Nobody makes that decision for any candidate."
Certainly, that's true in HC's case. I'm not sure about BO, but prolly also true. But, what I didn't ask was, who's idea was it to narrow the field to these two?
Please don't answer the voters. That would be the illusion perpetrated. That's what we're supposed to think and believe.
I don't think we know the tenth of it.
I'm hopeful s/o will beat McC but I'm not placing bets.
**********************
To ask HC to leave the race is undemocratic. How would it sound if people asked BO to agree to being second on the ticket in order to unite the party? I think we need both on the ticket if the dems are to beat McC.
What would be so bad about a co-presidency as a solution?
Add your comment
(to reply directly to a comment, click the reply icon for that comment)Post closed to commenting
Videos of some of the 64 House Healthcare Heroes standing strong for a public health insurance option
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver
Congressman Lloyd Dogget
Congressman Keith Ellison
Congressman Bob Filner
Congressman Phil Hare
Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey
Congresswoman Maxine Waters
Blog for America
-
1 Turncoat Senator vs. 410,649 Americans
By Mary R on Nov 19, 2009 3:06 PM EST -
Send a message they can't miss
By Mary R on Nov 17, 2009 12:00 PM EST -
Will the real Democrat please stand up?
By Mary R on Nov 11, 2009 2:03 PM EST -
3 Million and Counting
By Mary R on Nov 6, 2009 12:47 PM EST -
Is Sen. Nelson listening to Nebraska?
By Mary R on Nov 6, 2009 12:31 PM EST
Recent Blog Posts
-
Dreams wow gold
By wow gold w on Nov 22, 2009 3:17 AM EST -
the Psychobiology talk about the pc wow gold game
By wow gold w on Nov 21, 2009 11:39 PM EST -
Spring Trend 2009 Abercrombie & Fitch
By Abercrombie F on Nov 21, 2009 9:44 PM EST -
Vacationing?
By Phoenix V on Nov 21, 2009 2:07 PM EST -
Bags And Shoes Gucci or Louboutin
By Buy l on Nov 21, 2009 2:37 AM EST
-
By puddle on Apr 9, 2008 3:40 PM EDTHoward has been, is, and will be FIRST!
Give him some love: