Occupy Nonviolence

The massacre in Newtown, Connecticut has exposed the essential political failure of the so-called political leadership in our country.

Democrats and Republicans alike have failed miserably in leading our society toward a more nonviolent future. In times of crisis, such as now, the political class nibbles around the corners of the problem, but lacks the vision and capacity to really tackle the culture of violence at its roots. After all, there's an entire military-industrial-financial-media-educational-prison complex that relies on establishment conventional 'wisdom' for so-called solutions.

Independent of this abyss, stands one political party practicing a fundamentally different kind of politics founded on nonviolence, grassroots democracy, ecology, social and economic justice. This is the Green Party.

The fact that the Democrats and Republicans will ultimately wither on the vine, a kind of obsolescence based on a natural historical process, is no comfort for communities and families in the painful here and now. Only a new grassroots political engagement that boldly builds a culture of nonviolence throughout society, can offer any meaningful solace to the grieving.

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, Dec 17, 2012)