Walt and Milly Woodward

On February 19, 1942, the executive order (EO) 9066 promulgated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  The following is the full text of this executive order –

“Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas

Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220, and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C., Title 50, Sec. 104);

Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas.

I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area here in above authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.

I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services.

This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order (EO) No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas here under.”

It ordered all Japanese American to vacate their places of residence and move en masse into concentration camps setup up to accommodate them.  This occurred in the midst of World War II after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Although the United States was already at war with Nazi Germany, no such mandate was imposed upon the many German-Americans living throughout the country.

This mass evacuation imposed a severe burden on the lives of those citizens who were forced to abandon their homes and properties for the “duration” of the war.

In 1940, Walt and Milly Woodward from Bainbridge purchased the weekly publication, the Bainbridge Review.  Two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) that precipitated the declaration of war against Japan, they pledged in a front-page editorial to, “strive to speak the truth, unafraid. whether it be on a national interest or something purely local.”

They lived up to this promise to their readership; for, the day following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they warned that, “There is a danger of a blind, wild hysterical hatred of all persons who can trace ancestry to Japan.  That some of those persons happen to be American citizens…easily could be swept away by mob hysteria.”  They attempted to raise the awareness of their subscribers to the loyalty of their Japanese-American fellow citizens by stating in their newspaper that, “These Japanese Americans of ours haven’t bombed anybody…They have given every indication of loyalty to this nation.  They have sent…their own sons – six of them – into the United States Army.” 

As a result of the EO, 272 Japanese Americans were forced to abandon their homes, properties and friendships and moved to Manzanar – one of the ten Japanese concentrations that were erected throughout the nation.  Manzanar was located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California's Owens Valley and ultimately housed 10,000 individuals.  

This courageous and tenacious couple continued to speak out throughout the war regarding the injustice of the forced and massive relocation.  As a matter of fact, their publication was the only newspaper throughout the entire country to take such an unpopular position.  The Woodwards actually hired high school students – Paul Ohtaki, Sa Nakata, Tony Koura and Sada Omoto to report from Manzanar on the daily lives and challenges facing the inmates of that camp.

After the war, Walt and Milly Woodward remained strong local activists of the Bainbridge Island community especially in regard to local schools, construction of a new library and public transportation.  Walt ultimately stepped down as editor of the Review in 1963; the newspaper was sold in 1988.  Walt worked for a time on the editorial board of the Seattle times   Milly returned to her career as a high school teacher and died in 1989.  Walt passed away in 2001 at the age ninety-one.

Walt and Milly Woodward were recognized posthumously by the Asian Journalists Association for their outspoken opposition to the involuntary internment of Japanese-Americans. They were recipients of the, Special Recognition Award.

Finally, on March 30, 2009 (the sixty-seventh anniversary of the internment), the ground-breaking ceremony took place to begin construction of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial to honor those Japanese-Americans of Bainbridge Island who were moved into concentration camps.

Arthur Waskow

Arthur Waskow is the founder of the highly recognized and acclaimed Shalom Center (https://theshalomcenter.org).  Waskow was born in 1933 and spent his young life in Baltimore, Maryland.  As a young man he got his undergraduate degree at John Hopkins and eventually a doctorate in United States History at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1963).  At the time of his graduation, the United States was in the midst of social and political turmoil revolving around two distinct issues - the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement.

From 1959 to 1961, in the midst of his academic studies, he was passionately involved in disarmament and civil-rights in the role of a legislative assistant for U.S. Congressman Robert Krastenmeier of Wisconson.  From 1961 to 1963, he was a Senior Fellow of the Peace Research Institute.  This work inspired him to help create the Institute for Policy Studies and acted as a Fellow there until 1977.

Throughout the troubling era of the sixties, Waskow was a vociferous and relentless advocate for world peace and non-violent action against social injustice.  He wrote extensively on these issues including literally hundreds of articles and many books.  In 1968, he was a part of the Washington DC delegation to the Democratic National Convention of 1968.

Waskow’s interests eventually extended to the use of renewable energy and energy conservation – he began to understand the dangers to humanity of the ongoing reality of climate change.  His activism in regards to this issue took the form of his role as a Fellow of the Public Resource Center in Washington D.C.

Although his dedication to social activism remains intact, in 1969, he turned his attention to Jewish life in America. At the time, he felt it needed spiritual renewal.   His new journey is reflected in his Haggadah (a traditional Passover text) entitled, The Freedom Seder. 

The following excerpts from this masterful peace, show how Waskow incorporated the modern struggle for peace and social justice into the body of a traditional Jewish text in celebration of the Passover –

“For as one of the greatest of our prophets, whose own death by violence at a time near the Passover were member in tears tonight as the prophet Martin Luther King called us to know: "The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But the principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites-acquiescence and violence. The nonviolent resister rises to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the perpetrators of the system. Nonviolence can reach men where the law cannot touch them. So, we will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will not hate you, but we cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws. And in winning our freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process."

“And as rabbi Buber said, "The revolutionary lives on the knife's edge. The question that harasses him is not merely the moral or religious one of whether he may kill; his quandary has nothing at all to do with selling his soul to the devil' in order to bring the revolution to victory. His entanglement in the situation is here just the tension between end and means. I cannot conceive anything real corresponding to the saying that the end sanctifies the means; but 1 mean something which is real in the highest sense of the term when I say that the means profane, actually make meaningless, the end, that is, its realization! What is realized is the farther from the goal that was set, the more out of accord with it is the method by which it was realized. The ensuring of the revolution may only drain its heart's blood."

“Or as the rabbi Hannah Arendt wrote, "Man the political being is endowed with the power of speech. Speech is helpless when confronted with violence. Violence itself is incapable of speech. When violence rules absolutely, not only the laws but everything and everybody must fall silent."

“But even the prophet Gandhi, who made his life a call to nonviolent revolution, warned his people, "Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Unless you feel that in nonviolence you have come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one you have and in the use of which you are adept, you should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms you possessed before."

“So, the struggles for freedom that remain will be more dark and difficult than any we have met so far. For we must struggle for a freedom that enfolds stern justice, stern bravery, and stern love. Blessed art thou,0 Lord our God! who hast confronted us with the necessity of choice and of creating our own book of thy Law. How many and how hard are the choices and the tasks the Almighty has set before us!

“For if we were to end a single genocide but not to stop the other wars that kill men and women as we sit here, it would not be sufficient;

“If we were to end those bloody wars but not disarm the nations of the weapons that could destroy all mankind, it would not be sufficient;

“If we were to disarm the nations but not to end the brutality with which the police attack black people in some countries, brown people in others; Moslems in some countries, Hindus in other; Baptists in some countries, atheists in others; Communists in some countries, conservatives in other it would not be sufficient;

“If we were to end outright police brutality but not prevent some people from wallowing in luxury while others starved, it would not be sufficient;

“If we were to make sure that no one starved but were not to free the daring poets from their jails, it would not be sufficient;

“If we were to free the poets from their jails but to train the minds of people so that they could not understand the poets, it would not be sufficient;

“If we educated all men and women to understand the free creative poets but forbade them to explore their own inner ecstasies, it would not be sufficient;

“If we allowed men and women to explore their inner ecstasies but would not allow them to love one another and share in the human fraternity, it would not be sufficient.

“How much then are we in duty bound to struggle, work, share, give, think, plan, feel, organize, sit-in, speak out, hope, and be on behalf of Mankind! For we must end the genocide [in Vietnam] , stop the bloody wars that are killing men and women as we sit here, disarm the nations of the deadly weapons that threaten to destroy us all, end the brutality with which the police beat minorities in many countries, make sure that no one starves, free the poets from their jails, educate us all to understand their poetry, allow us all to explore our inner ecstasies, and encourage and aid us to love one another and share in the human fraternity. All these!”

In 1982, he became a member of the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and in 1983 he co-founded the Shalom Center (https://theshalomcenter.org/).  The Shalom Center’s mission is to revitalize modern Judaism.  In keeping with this mission, it works closely with the National Council of Churches, Muslim groups and has aligned itself with teachers and activists in order to find common approaches to world problems including racism, poverty, climate change, the Israeli-Palestine conflict etc.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow works tirelessly in the pursuit of peace and social justice.  His generosity of spirit is inspiration to all of those who desire a more peace and equitable human world.

The Human World in Disarray

As the number of human beings populating planet earth continues to grow resulting in greater pressure placed upon the resources necessary to sustain twenty-first century human existence; as the climate of the earth is changing and deteriorating as a direct result of human activity and as human wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of a very few of the world’s people, acts of irrational and crazed violence are growing at an alarming rate.

Living in the so-called, “developed world,” we have become accustomed to expect that life will provide us with a wide range of comforts and ever-expanding opportunities for enjoyment and fulfillment that is far in excess of the expectations of billions of our fellow humans. 

Primarily due to the time and place of birth, vast numbers of our species are subjected to a life of constant turmoil, violence and hardship denied access to the essentials that we naturally take for granted.  Within the limited boundaries of such an existence lies a trying and shortened existence. 

The peoples of the developed world choose to remain oblivious to the price their affluence is exacting upon those less fortunate by siphoning both wealth and resources from much of world.  Ironically, the most telling example of this is the fact that in order to sustain the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to we are producing an over-abundance of greenhouse gases that will ultimately negatively impact the entire human population regardless of place of origin or economic status.

Unfortunately, and tragically, all of this extreme suffering is unnecessary.  Life is a fleeting experience and one that should be cherished and appreciated.  Nonetheless it is all too often squandered in the myopic pursuit of self-interest at the expense of the common good.  We could live in a peaceful and harmonious world if only we could regard everyone as our equals and deserving of meaningful and fulfilling existence.  After all, there is certainly an abundance of intelligence, resourcefulness, creativity, ingenuity and skill within the human community to confront and overcome the problems that we all face as human beings on this most remarkable planet.

A Plea for Sanity

I am deeply unsettled by events that are unfolding here and around this deeply troubled human world.  As a people, we seem to be gravitating towards a darker era of the nation’s past – a time when power was deeply entrenched within the domain of white males.  We seem to be revisiting a time when corporate power controlled all aspects of American life; when the central government played no role in regulating the influence, policies and reach of the powerful; when the natural environment was not considered in the formulation of public policy; when diverse opinions were regarded as essentially irrelevant; when civil rights and human rights had no place in the national discourse and when keeping the population as ignorant as possible - especially in the realm of science - was seen as a necessary tool of governance.

This new federal administration seems to be more than willing to engage in bigoted and demeaning speech and to offer credence to xenophobia through both words and divisive actions in a country that has been deeply enriched by a remarkable degree of diversity that serves us all well.

For the most powerful nation on the planet to move in such a direction in the 21st century is an astounding prospect and is very disturbing.

 

In the meantime, the striving of all of humanity is overshadowed by the indisputable reality of climate change dangerously accelerated by human activity that can only be countered by collective and sustained effort.  In spite of this reality, the humans on planet earth – our only home – remain mired in debilitating conflicts and seemingly endless struggles over politics, religion and economics.  As a result, a great many humans endure suffering often of the most extreme kind.

This is not the way it has to be.  As human beings, we are quite capable of so much more.  I know that we can create a world in which love, compassion, intelligence, reason, and generosity of spirit are the values that inform our politics and our behavior. 

A Wistful Song

Will humans ever discard

incessant and ancient calls to hatred

subdue the chaotic winds of war

relentless stupidity of the lower brain.

Will humans ever awaken

to the essential joy of living

fall into the blissful and awaiting

embrace of love.

Will humans ever find release

within the fiery storm of consciousness

surrender at last to the reality of

death’s encompassing presence.

Will humans ever bury

the blighted harvest that only

greed can promise.

Will humans ever embrace

everyone as family

put an end

to all the needless suffering.

Will humans ever ascend

the golden staircase

into that terrain

enfolded by the sweet enveloping breath

of boundless peace.

A View Towards the Future

Currently (circa 2016), human societies are in a state of disarray around the planet; many of these societies are in an apparent state of severe crisis engulfed in wars of aggression.  These disturbing developments have no simple explanations: the history of humanity cannot be summed by using some Star Wars-like analogy where it is simply a universal struggle between good and evil.  Usually, those who propose such a simplistic explanation conveniently find themselves on the side of the good and never consorting with “bad guys.”

Historic developments are shaped over time and ultimately reflect the internal struggle that confronts all individuals – the fragile and volatile nature of human consciousness as it navigates through the real world and attempts to make sense out of reality and find a suitable place within it.  This internal struggle involves the tenuous integration between two aspects of consciousness that are embedded within the architecture of the human brain – the lower brain that is the seat of the stark and explosive emotions and the upper brain that is the source of intelligence, the capacity to reason, the ability to analyze complex situations, the inclination towards love, compassion and harmony and ultimately the drive to find solutions and to progress.

Worldwide it appears that human societies are highly conflicted and that the apparent differences between peoples have been so magnified and amplified that violence and senseless aggression are commonplace.  This reality has, of course, been a common denominator throughout human history and is more the rule than the exception.

Overshadowing this unfortunate aspect of the human condition, however, is a far more ominous reality and that is the ineluctable unfolding of the consequences of climate change.  This should be the pivotal concern of the human species; for it will ultimately determine the survivability of humans on planet earth.

In my mind, the choice is clear.  Either humans begin to perceive themselves as individuals of the same species that spans all countries and continents and become determined to work together to salvage the natural environment we all depend upon or choose to remain mired in the differences we impose upon ourselves and others concerning religious, racial, ethnic, political and economic differences.

This choice will determine the future of humanity  No amount of wishful thinking or religious sentiment or allegiance to any particular economic or social system will temper the natural environment as human activity continues to upset the delicate balance that has permitted humanity to live and prosper for thousands of years.  To remain fractured by differences, to squander way too much precious conscious time within the restricted and confining prison of the lower brain is to consign future generations to a dark and ominous future.

Currently, the possibility that the human species will save itself through united action motivated by the desire to compromise, collaborate and find intelligent solutions to real world problems seems rather unlikely; we do seem to be hopelessly inclined towards petty and trivial pursuits, confined by oppressive and self-defeating belief systems and inured to violent aggression as a means to settle differences.

But, change is always possible even of the seemingly radical variety.  There are a multitude of voices in the world that constantly attempt to remind us of what we, as a species, are truly capable of if only we would awaken to the better aspects of ourselves.

I remain hopeful that we will collectively come to our senses and rediscover the majesty and magnificence of this place called home and will become enlivened to action and make this transient journey called life all that it can be for everyone.

The Human Brain - A Truly Marvelous Organ

I would like to spend some time talking about the marvelous organ we all possess and reliably take for granted – the human brain.  On average the human brain weighs between 1300 and 1400 grams (about 3 pounds).

This marvel of neuronal circuitry.  possesses about 90 billion neurons – those remarkably specialized cells designed to carry information through electrical impulses.  It has been demonstrated that the brain consumes nearly a quarter of all the energy the body produces in order to keep it functioning.

The Neuron

It is within this organ that consciousness arose during the course of  human evolution.    This profoundly organized structure is the site where all our perceptions arise and is the origin of our personal identity and our personality.   This brain is the site not only of our often unruly emotions but also of all the elemental qualities that make us sentient beings – our intellect, our ability to reason, to learn, to think, to analyze the world around us, to problem solve, as well as our creativity and our judgment.  It is also the center of our moral and ethical universe.

My point is that this marvelous organ that we possess is capable of so much more than we seem able to utilize.  With this amazing organic wonder, we can certainly fashion a better and more sustainable world than the one we have created to date.  Collectively, we have done an abysmal job at fashioning viable and enduring habitats for the globally far flung members of our species.  Instead, we have allowed short-sited and often emotionally-charged visions of our world to dominate our thinking and shape our misguided perceptions as to what constitutes successful living.  We have allowed the darker elements of our psyche - embedded within the lower brain - such as fear, vanity, violence and greed to dominate our thinking and sculpt our existence.

We are quite capable of transforming the world of humans into one in which all people can prosper and develop into individuals that actively discover and realize their full capabilities and potential.  We are quite capable of creating a world where hunger and war and needless suffering are effectively eliminated and one in which the future holds promise for everyone.  We are quite capable of finally and irrevocably removing ourselves from the endless cycle of violence and retribution that we have endured for millennia.

Why we continue to fail so miserably at realizing what we already possess is a mystery that continues to haunt me and will most certainly pursue me to my grave.