Worlds Apart Screening

A tremendous film by Tom Jackson was shown at the Walpole Public Library tonight. Honest, personal, and hopeful. "Worlds Apart: 9-11 First Responders Against the War" follows Megan Bartlett from New York, where she was a medic at "ground zero", to Kabul, where she befriends Afghan medics and firefighters working in the shadow of the US occupation. Here is a link to the film's web site with clips and more:

Joe Public Films

Tom presented the film, and spoke about his experiences with the groups "Ground Zero for Peace" and "Global Exchange" (who handled the logistics of the trip). Tom was engaging and passionate; his stories were both troubling and inspiring. Ground Zero for Peace's stated mission is to make clear the difference between justice and vengeance. I was particularly taken with the words of a young lady in the film, Maggie Dubris, who was also a medic at ground zero on 9/11 -- she spoke about the need to end the cycle not of "violence", but the cycle of "vengeance". There's a clip of some of her interview here:

100,000 casualties in Iraq

And since 2004, the vengeance engine has been running at full speed: a cartoon can spark a series of fatal riots. At the same time, our Justice Department is apparently telling the President he can kill people on US soil. In vengeance, for every action there is a disproportionate reaction -- and people stop being rational beings.

With the film, Tom Jackson humanizes this situation, and changes the scale of this global schism. As the viewer, you see there is really very little that separates us as people. A medic in New York and a medic in Kabul both have to deal with messy ambulances, they both meticulously track their response times, and they both have to deal with the same kinds of human healing. Thanks Tom!

We have our own blog now; if you want to help moderate, post a comment at the link below. For those who may have missed it -- my "Peace Banner" post from the weekend. Check the schedule for events involving the banner on The Peace Abbey web site.