Chicago - Quaker Ranter

Two Theories of Change and Liberal Friends

Martin Kelley — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:23:10 +0000

Over in the NYTimes columnist David Brooks talks about Two Theories of Change. He’s talking about modern American politics but it seems relevant to Friends. Here’s his summary of a new paper by Yuval Levin of the University of Chicago:

[Thomas] Paine believed that societies exist in an “eternal now.” That something has existed for ages tells us nothing about its value. The past is dead and the living should use their powers of analysis to sweep away existing arrangements when necessary, and begin the world anew. He even suggested that laws should expire after 30 years so each new generation could begin again

[Edmund] Burke, a participant in the British Enlightenment, had a different vision of change. He believed that each generation is a small part of a long chain of history. We serve as trustees for the wisdom of the ages and are obliged to pass it down, a little improved, to our descendents. That wisdom fills the gaps in our own reason, as age-old institutions implicitly contain more wisdom than any individual could have.

For Brooks, the Paine folllowers are Tea Party activists who think it’s fine to “sweep away 100 years of history and return government to its preindustrial role.”

But for Friends, especially Liberal Friends, this touches on the nature of “Continual Revelation” that has been at the center of much of our deliberations for about a hundred years now. Are we in an “eternal now,” ready to reinvent liberal Quakerism every thirty years and only willing to read old Friends to pull quotes out of context? Or are we tinkerers of tradition, trustees keeping the parts oiled for the next generation?

I can think of particular Friends who follow Paine’s continual revolution model and others who follow Burke’s long chain model. Somehow both feel limited. To subscribe strongly to either is a kind of fundamentalism. We are in an eternal now (Christ has come to teach the people himself) but we have 350 of experiences and techniques that have taught us how to be ready to act in that now. Insisting on both seems important.

Horses on a Trot?

Martin Kelley — Mon, 08 Dec 2003 17:40:59 +0000

Almost a month ago I question a “newly-launched campaign of phone tax resistance”:http://www.hanguponwar.org in a post called “Beating Dead Horses”:www.nonviolence.org/articles/000194.php.
Robert Randall, a dear friend who I haven’t seen in far too long, wrote in last night explaining how the new campaign came about and some of its goals.
bq. Hi, Martin.
   I’m all for coming up with new tactics, and I think a lot of people have
been doing just that. This doesn’t mean, though, that we have to leave old
tactics behind if they can serve us. Nor should we assume that old tactics
are not new tactics for some.
   Interestingly, at its Nov. 2002 meeting, the National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee did in fact decide to shelve a “Hang Up On the SOA”
flyer because the ease of telephone tax resistance was no longer there: with
the plethora of new phone companies and the unwillingness of the FCC to
apply its old rulings on the AT&T tariff to other companies, we felt that it
would be inaccurate to promote phone tax refusal as an easy, low-risk form
of removing support for war.
   Now, though, we have the possibility, through a large phone tax
redirection campaign and the Internet, to learn and gather together the
how-to-do-it information on all these different phone services. It may take
time, but it is far from impossible. In the process, a lot of educating can
be done, both of the public and of phone company employees. ease of doing
it can rise and risk can be lowered.
   What I like about the Hang Up On War campaign (www.hanguponwar.org) is
that it did not originate with a war tax organization. It comes from the
iraq peace Pledge, made up of a number of peace groups, old and new. NWTRCC is available to service the campaign, but the fact that “mainline” peace
groups are promoting wtr is something which, as you are aware, those of us
who are long-time war tax converters have long desired. While support for
this campaign was not unanimous at our recent NWTRCC meeting in Chicago, I,
for one, felt it a great opportunity to get people started toward less
symbolic, real war tax redirection.
   True, the federal excise tax on phone service is no more directly
linked to war than the federal income tax, but it is also no less. One
strategy which I favor is to provide as many avenues of ingress to resisting
war as possible. This is one. We can certainly come up with others, and
with better ones, but I see no benefit in disparaging what some are doing
for peace. For many people, phone tax resistance is a new tactic and a big
step. Let’s applaud what I see as a step forward, into any kind of
resistance, for groups which have often stopped short of such things, and
work with them to keep moving ever forward. I trust you will be suggesting
to where that might be.
peace and hope,
Robert Randall

1996 Bookmarks

Martin Kelley — Fri, 20 Dec 1996 22:45:58 +0000

Nonviolence Web’s Bookmarks

Nonviolence Web Discussion Board Links Full Listings War Resisters League National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund Fellowship of Reconciliation Fellowship Magazine SIPAZ Pax Christi USA Private Posting Systems NISBCO Natl Campaign for Peace Tax Fund SIPAZ Philly Young Adult Friends

NVWeb Adminstration

Putting the Nonviolence Movement online, one page at a time.

NVWeb Homepage
File Manager
Miscellaneous NVWeb: Search Engine
Statistics Full Access Statistics Graphic Web Counter Linked Folks This will give you a listing of every web page in Alta Vista’s directory which has a link to the Nonviolence Web.

Martin’s Homepage Martin’s homepage Martink Web Counts How popular is my page? See for yourself. Vortex Videos Martin Kelley’s Bookmarks

The Combined Times

Based on the idea of the CRAYON newservice,this is a frame-based compendium of mainstream news services I use.

News and Resources Children of the Light a.ka. the Religious Society of Friends, a.ka. the Quakers. “Children of the Light” was an early name for the Quakes that I’m personally trying to revive. Friends’ WWW Quakers on the net!, oh my what would George Fox have said? Well, you don’t need to guess, since he’s online here (I kid you not). Philly Young Adult Friends See what we cool cat twentysomething Quakers are getting ourselves into. PYM draft page This is the longest-running draft page I’ve ever put together. Quaker committees can be an experience in themselves, and this Philly Yearly Meeting’s web committee barely has a pulse. Philly Stuff Indexes Joe’s Links City.Net Philadelphia LibertyNet Lots of good Philly groups broadcast out of LibertyNet. Inky/Daily News Ritz Filmbill The two Ritz’s are the only interesting theaters left in this town which experts agree has one of the lowest theater/capita ratings in the country. Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema City Paper The local alternative weekly’s online. Fancy graphics (too fancy perhaps) mark this foray into cyberpublishing. SEPTA Public-transit authority SEPTA is the leader in ambiguous P.R. Take their shit-tank name for starters, then add their wacky slogans like “SEPTA: We’re Getting There” or “We’re Trying to Do Our Best.” Philly Weather From Intellicast, a great weather site complete with forecast, synopsis and the latest radar images. Philadelphia Radar Miscellaneous Crayon News Service NY Times Quick Read NY Times Late News Update MSNBC National Public Radio Timecast: The RealAudio Guide Library of Congress The Library’s on line. Switchboard (phone directory) The WWW Purity Test FedEx Tracking UPS Home Page Amtrak Schedules This August I took the Broadway Limited from Chicago. Now I read they’re going to cut the line from the schedule. Is this progress? This site is independent of Amtrak but has all the schedules. Amtrak�s Station The official Amtrak homepage has lots of interesting information about the trains, but no schedules!

Regular Checks —Message of the Day USENET NV Search Check Mailing Lists

Websites DataRealm —FAQs —Mailing Lists —Message of the Day Net Access This is my service provider. Very Web friendly folks. If you’re in the Philly area, definetly consider getting an account. –telnet Peacenet –telnet

Computers

The Web is the most self-referential medium ever. Despite the corporate hype, most pages are still concerned with how to create pages, etc.

PERL/CGI Matt’s Script Archive Take 10 Minutes to Learn ™ — PERL Resources for PERL Web Development Information
Web Design Yahoo Web Page Design Net Access’s guide Reference Material Introducing HTML 3.2 Lynx Users Guide v2.3 Fill-Out Forms iso8859‑1 table Justin’s Links from the Underground This has some great, right-on manifestos about why we need to publish on the web, along with some great HTML tips and tricks. The Kick-Ass Website Award
Web Toys 32-bit Apps Main Menu Welcome to Vivo.Com GIF Construction Set
CD/Disk Problems TOSHIBA — Disk Products Division Setup Does Not Detect Standard IDE Drive On IBM 9353 Hardware Questions FAQ: Is there a list of CD-ROM drives that require real-mode drivers?
Computer Stuff McAfee antivirus FTP Microsoft Word Software Library Windows95 Annoyances Tricks for getting around the annoyances, plus convincing essays which posit that Windows might just be a particularly-popular virus…
UNIX UNIXhelp for users DOS to UNIX Translation

Internet Movie Database

Alta Vista

As far as I’m concerned, you can forget all the other search engines. Alta Vista is the one that passes my most important test: it has me listed the most times.

Simple Query
Advanced Query
Who’s linked into me

Music the ultimate band list Olga Index-MIT Shel’s stuff Michelle Shocked has her stuff online

Schmucks I know Mud’s Email Mud’s Bookmarks Ann Farnsworth-Alvear’s Constance Cooper Dan Birchall Jacob Mattison Jill Mulvey’s lame page Jorj’s home-page Kris Tapp Michael Burke Peter Selinger Rafael Richards Steve Pyne My housemate, awwww.…. Thomas Taylor Tom Diling World Game Institute Penn Math homepages

Discussion: “WWWBoard…”

Circa 1996, recovered via Archive.org

Chicago - Quaker Ranter

Two Theories of Change and Liberal Friends

Horses on a Trot?

1996 Bookmarks

Nonviolence Web’s Bookmarks

Nonviolence Web

Private Posting Systems

NVWeb Adminstration

Miscellaneous

Statistics

Martin’s Homepage

News and Resources

Children of the Light

Philly Stuff

Indexes

Miscellaneous

Regular Checks

Websites

Computers

PERL/CGI

Web Design

Reference Material

Web Toys

CD/Disk Problems

Computer Stuff

UNIX

Alta Vista

Music

Schmucks I know