There is no question that things “cold and lewd” dwell in the psyche.  But so do things warm and creative.  Which part do we want to bring to life? 

What are we thinking? There is nothing to prevent you and me from stemming the flow of violence into our minds, as far as possible, and thinking for ourselves.

When Michael Lerner urged me to reply to “Gandhi Centre Stage,” the article by Perry Anderson that appeared in a recent issue of the London Review of Books, I assented.

Who was Gandhi? A British prelate once made the mistake of approaching him with the words, “We’re both men of God, Mr. Gandhi, aren’t we?” The Mahatma replied, “You are a politician disguised as a man of God; I am a man of God disguised as a politician.” Why did he take on the disguise?

The refrain of the media is that we have no choice. That is because “we” are wedded to the wrong principle, which in turn is based on a wrong vision of reality. Open our eyes to the right vision and it becomes obvious that we can support indigenous nonviolence in and unarmed civilian peacekeeping for areas that need them.

At some point we will have to talk about readily available weapons; at some point we’ll have to realize that a nation that engages in heartless drone warfare, torture, and extrajudicial killings cannot expect to live in peace. But until we liberate our minds from the endless pounding of violent imagery I fear we won’t be able to think clearly about those factors (or for that matter anything else).

After a roaring start, the Occupy movement hit a wall in the form of rough-handling and evictions by the police. Occupiers could have given up on nonviolence—as a small faction will always try to get us to do—or just given up; but instead we have gone back to the drawing board, while continuing to occupy select spaces, this time with advance training. This is exactly the right response.

If truth is the first victim in times of war and violence, women are a close second. It is not possible to have a violent society in which women are treated with respect.

There are spiritual laws in the universe, and they can be discovered, and used. Despite appearances, love flows in the heart of every human being.

Corporate domination of the world, or “globalization from above,” has done two things for us.  It raised consciousness of world unity; inadvertently awakening “globalization from below,” and by progressively releasing all constraints on greed it finally squeezed the economic middle class, taking out from under them the false comfort of “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage,” and thus reawakening, but in a new environment, the class struggles of the 1930s.  Given enough rope, the 1% have begun to expose the inherent contradiction of an economy based on wants

The first lesson an awakened public should draw from the scenes at Berkeley and Davis is really that there’s no such thing as “appropriate” violence that can be contained in a corner and not spill out where we don’t want it—or more accurately, where we are forced to recognize what it really is.

There are patterns of growing sensitivity clearly discernible in all human communities over the long span of time — growth in what we might call moral awareness, or the awareness of connectedness among fellow beings (and, ultimately, the planet that nurtures us).

When Gandhi and virtually the whole leadership was arrested during the Salt Satyagraha of 1930 leadership devolved, successfully, onto every individual. This kind of leadership was one of Gandhi’s most striking achievements. His concept of “heart unity” — that if people want one another’s fulfillment they are one despite any differences of class, status, or whatever — applied to leadership.

If there is one thing characteristic of nonviolence, and a principle that we cannot forget, it is that the nonviolent vision, this form of struggle, awakens the humanity of oneself and one’s opponent. This renewed sense of connection is not merely a fruit of the tree of nonviolence, it is its very core and our highest victory, because from it will emerge new ideals, stronger communities and healthy children.

While the Occupy movement today seems to be just a continuation of the style that is “dispersed, inchoate, and fiercely independent. It has no manifesto or doctrine, no overriding authority to check with.” Can #Occupy provide the framework that will pull these far-flung but inwardly resonant energies together—and in so doing become a force that could, in Gandhi’s terms, “o’ersweep the world”?

These prevailing narratives of militarism revolve around the powerful archetype of good and evil, order vs. chaos; but they can be overcome by an even more powerful myth, if you will (I taught mythology for many years at U.C. Berkeley), which is the struggle for life itself against death.

The movement has empowered youth (and others) in their hundreds of thousands to demonstrate in some 1,500 locations in 82 countries, creating in the process a beautiful culture of consensus decision making. But that was the easy part. Now it is time to overturn and replace the obnoxious institutions and behaviors that have (at last) brought us together

As the Occupy movements grow in remarkably inspiring ways, they have a unique opportunity to raise the human image from the slander and propaganda of the corporate media—where our capacity for consumption defines us and our desire for wealth drives us—to a more promising, and far more accurate conception of what makes us truly human: our capacity for nonviolence, motivated by our most precious desire for freedom.

There is no limit to how small movements can start if they stay true to their cause, if it is just; and to their vision, if it is sufficiently inspiring, for if those conditions were met they would inevitably grow.

Military intervention is designed to kill, not to save life. We are see the futility of training, arming, and ordering men and women to kill and expecting them to stay within agreed upon rules—not to mention go on to build stable regimes. At some point we need to recognize that there is a terrible simplicity about life: destructive energy is destructive, positive energy is positive.