Bøger af Blase Bonpane

Much of our current media makes us feel powerless and unconscious. These commentaries are designed to make us conscious and aware of the power we have to build humane national and international polities.

This is the personal story of the life of Blase Bonpane, a vanguard practitioner of liberation theology and a former Maryknoll priest.In the wake of the Second Vatican Council 1962-1965 many religious people, especially those serving in Latin America, began to understand a spirituality that transcended sectarianism. Having come from an upwardly mobile Italian American family marked by Southern Italian anti-clericalism, Blase was accustomed to hearing his parents express real differences with their institutional church. He went into the seminary despite the avid protests of his parents. BlaseÆs odyssey takes us from his high school and college years, through his service in Guatemala during a violent revolution, to his expulsion from that country for subversion. After receiving gag order from the Church, which he could not in good conscience accept, Blase met with the editorial board of the Washington Post and released all of the material he had regarding the U.S. military presence in Guatemala. This action led to his separation from the Maryknoll Fathers.Blase accepted a teaching post at UCLA. While serving in academia, he met the former Maryknoll Sister Theresa Killeen, who had served in Southern Chile. They married in 1970. Their adventures include working directly with Cesar Chavez at his headquarters in La Paz, California, building solidarity with the Central American Revolution, forming the Office of the Americas, working in the forefront of the international movement for justice and peace, and raising two children.Blase worked on the ground for international peace in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Cuba, Japan and Iraq. He led the U.S. contingent of the International March for Peace in Central America from Panama to Mexico in 1985-1986.

Blase Bonpane is a new abolitionist who believes the war system can be replaced with a peace system. Guerrillas of Peace includes radio commentaries, interviews, and other works which examine and promote the ideology of peace.

Fifty years from now, historians will be identifying the criminality of the George W. Bush Administration. As these academics document their task they will be dependent on authors who were \u0022in his face\u0022 at the time of these international crimes. Blase Bonpane believes that silence is complicity. Civilization is Possible identifies the crimes at the very time they were being committed. Aside from the weekly commentaries of Blase Bonpane, this volume also includes his personal interviews with like minded observers of the disastrous Bush years: Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Robert Fisk, Greg Palast and Peter Laufer. These are voices crying in the wilderness of rampant militarism, torture and collateral damage (murder). This toxic mix was nurtured by literally hundreds of lies coming from a failed administration that blatantly abused the sacred trust of our citizens.These commentaries would have never been permitted by the rigid corporate media censorship which marks the Iraq War years. This exercise of free speech in Civilization is Possible was only made possible by \u0022fiercely independent\u0022 KPFK radio Los Angeles (listener supported and \u0022powered by the people\u0022) for the Pacifica Network.Civilization is Possible completes a trilogy of Blase Bonpane's books published by Red Hen Press. His previous books were: Guerrillas of Peace; Pacifica Radio Commentaries and Peace Reports from the Office of the Americas, second printing, 2002, and Common Sense for the Twenty-First Century, 2004, which in addition to his radio commentaries includes interviews with the Reverend James Lawson, Jonathan Schell and Chalmers Johnson.By selecting The Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the preface to Civilization is Possible, Blase Bonpane gives a hint about how his title might become a reality.