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A New American Dream This Mother's Day
Every Mother's Day we mothers are subjected to the same consumer brainwash: that we deserve a “day off”, and flowers, and brunch – or at least breakfast in bed.
But Mother's Day originated as a call for peace after the grisly, divisive carnage of Civil War. In 1870, Julia Ward Howe wanted to appoint “a general congress of women without limit of nationality...to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”
On May 10, 1908 Anna Jarvis presided over the first official Mother's Day celebration at Andrew's Methodist Church... then was arrested trying to stop women selling flowers. She wanted to “keep the day one of sentiment not one of profit”.
In 2005, Israeli Nurit Peled-Elhanan, whose 13-year-old daughter was killed in a Jerusalem suicide bombing, said, “Mothers have always been rebellious. In the Bible, in Greek mythology, there is always a mother who defies authority. The Talmud described mothers as prophets, because they looked ahead and understood what would happen to the children....”
Mother's Day is for the rebellious who concur, “Not for me flowers force-fed for profit in greenhouses built on land that ought to grow non-GM crops to feed the world's hungry and homeless”; “Not for me a day off, rather a day on...shutting down the -isms that thwart life's everyday ecstasy: neoliberalism, globalism, racism, sexism, elitism, oligarchic parasitism”, “Not for me a day in fealty to consumerism but to remember Wordsworth: “getting and spending, we lay waste our powers”....
Instead of sitting down at the brunch table Mother's Day could signal the first day of the rest of our lives pledging to sit down in our nation's streets, blow our whistles, bang our pots, sound our alarms, and tell our politicians: “Stop bowing to the almighty corporate dollar, bring home our troops, tax the corporations and the rich to educate our children and ensure the health and well-being of all members of our society... or we will force you from office!”
Pledge to tell it like it is: profiteering shatters our society, tears up our earth, and contaminates our communities; sloganeering destroys our native intelligence, dumbs down our instincts, dulls our wits; careerism fogs our ethics, corrupts our morals, betrays our humanity; waging war kills the souls of all humans – whether made in America or where America makes war.
Fellow Americans may call us tough nuts, or a nut-busters, or just plain old nuts but remind them that another tough nut, United States Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler told us, even before transnational corporatism's firm grip on our time, our wallets, and our children, that:
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
Nurit Peled-Elhanan said, “Mothers, women in general, are not used to saying, “No! No, I am nobody's property. No! My children are nobody's property. No, my uterus is not a national asset.”
Lets try it. All together now: “No! No more wars promoted by patriotism but parlayed into profit.”
For, oh, we still have such a long way to go, baby!
Nurit Peled-Elhanan tells her story in Susan Galleymore's book, Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak about War and Terror, where she shares the stories of mothers in the war zones of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, West Bank, Israel, Afghanistan, and the US.
11 Comments so far
Show All"Pledge to tell it like it is: profiteering shatters our society, tears up our earth, and contaminates our communities; sloganeering destroys our native intelligence, dumbs down our instincts, dulls our wits; careerism fogs our ethics, corrupts our morals, betrays our humanity; waging war kills the souls of all humans – whether made in America or where America makes war."
This is the most succinct description of north american culture yet and can be simplified to the two words: profiteering and sloganeering! Very good post Susan!
"Is there anything I own in my possessions which promotes conflict, war, or threatens the peace?" Quaker, John Woolman, asked himself that question all of the time. Share what you have and reduce the forces which lead to war.
Thanks to all of the mothers who are for peace and who are willing to speak up to end war.
Like it or not, at this point in time, it is the US who is the war monger, stirring up trouble, sending out drones, largest seller of weapons, still developing more nuclear weapons when we have the largest arsenal in the world, propping up dictators, then killing them when they refuse to go along with the program, driven by our obsession with oil and cheap energy. Meanwhile China and Russia (not meaning that they're perfect), and others use their resourcefulness in more productive ways. This being said, the entire human race still has a lot to learn. But being human, will we?
I still say we could have bought a lot of oil (and funded education and a few other necessities) for what we've spent on useless and destructive wars...
One woman's opinion!
A Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers here today. I wonder, with the direction the world is heading in, how many of them can relate to what I went through as a mother.
My boys were born at the beginning of the '60s, and my biggest fear then was of them being drafted, going off to fight in a war that even then I knew would have nothing whatsoever to do with the reasons given for going to war. When they were still babies, and I was only in my early twenties, I was thinking of ways that I might disable them just enough to make their then less than perfect, virgin bodies not good enough for military service. Thankfully they have grown into middle aged men who never experienced war, because I found that I couldn't cause them harm in any way.
This is an incredible post. Thank you.
MOTHER’S DAY
How to fit all the mothers, grand, great, which may be more than once removed like my Mother? All of these may be referred to as Ma, Mom, Mother, Sweetheart, “hay you“!, the maid, the cook, “don’t touch my stuff” from all kids; even the grown up ones. I just realized that there is no end to the various stages of motherhood; such as you might find in multitude of animal species: plants are different, in that once planted they don’t move by their own volition. I will always accord the greatest respect for all of them.
There are all the members of my family, ALL! It’s a lot. The lady of my life and her family, all of them too and I can’t leave out the mother of my children: we just could not… Yet, thinking about what to put down this year there was a smile and a tear; a smile for all that have enough to sustain the lives birthed and all that needed and wanted the love and nurturing that is the special Provence of motherhood. This is not confined to any age, race, color and, in this day and age, gender, I think the Creator has no problem with that and so how could I? What’s in the heart is what counts.
My tears are for all the mothers , the grand’s and more that labor and travail to bring forth a body with a Soul, a name, a personality that is terminated, yes, terminated or in some ways worse; maimed: a statistic, a number, maybe, “collateral damage” in the worst of all human endeavors; war. Humans, which are supposed to be the ultimate species on this planet are the only ones to war among themselves and it boggles the mind why; so many books, so many different answers and not an end in sight. There is another “war” that pit’s the haves and have-nots against each other and there is famine, economic and physical and death may be the merciful way out. How can one life be worth more than another?
MY prayer, my wish, my hope is that ALL mothers be able to do what they all have in their hearts to do and that this, ever be, for wherever in this whole wide world they would find themselves
Tony May 7, 2011
How about what some of us would like to see from Moms: to paraphrase the Willie Nelson song, changing only one word, Moms don't let your babies grow up to be soldiers. This now includes daughter babies too.
Leave it women to be the most sensible of the species. Seems that this is what it says it is, the way to protest and strike against the motivated and callus people who want everything done yesterday. But it is way too bad that consumerism took hold and flaunts it victory.
Today, I will think of my mother and be happy. And I won't go anywhere, except in my back yard to work, and I won't make any purchases other than the ongoing bills I have to pay once a month, but not today.
Your mom raised a smart daughter samo.