A recent commencement address by Dennis Kucinich: Dear Friend, I want to share with you this Commencement speech I gave this week to 5000 attendees from over 100 countries at American University in Dubai (AUD). Previous AUD Commencement speakers include President Clinton and Secretaries of State Powell, Albright and Baker. In the speech I strive [...]
Daisaku Ikeda, president of the SGI, or Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist lay organization with about 13,000,000 members in 192 countries and territories, presents an annual peace proposal to the United Nations. This year’s proposal focuses on the topic of “Human Security and Sustainability: Sharing Reverence for the Dignity of Life.” All of Mr. Ikeda’s [...]
The times they are a’changing. The contrast is very stark: Authoritarian powers and dupes of leaders are falling like dominoes around the world. Those hanging onto their power through iron-fisted control tremble in the face of something brewing beyond their control. Even in our own supposedly democratic government, there is exposed the most glaring self-centeredness, [...]
A week ago, Dennis Kucinich gave a speech in Seattle. It is about a new America, and the Dream of America. It is about the kind of America we all yearn for, and envision for our children. Draw your own conclusions. Here is the speech: Hello Seattle. On this day, in this place of great [...]
Hiroshima. August 6, 1945. The Bomb. The after effects of that first atomic bomb still linger on in the psyche of the world, especially in the United States. At the end of the War, a scenario was scripted and promoted by the U. S. government, which basically argued that the dropping of the atomic bomb [...]
Democracy, and especially democracy in America, is a concept we usually take for granted. It means a vast variety of things: freedom, liberty, the right to vote, equal representation, freedom of religion, and so on. The world is now experiencing a vast upheaval throughout the Mideast and Arab countries; and for us here in the [...]
A reading from his latest book, “The Buddha and the Dream of America“, by James Hilgendorf. More information about the book is available on the website of The Tribute Series. Other books by James Hilgendorf are “Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective”; “The Great New Emerging Civilization“; and “The New Superpower.” All of his books [...]
The country of Kazakhstan is not very well known in the United States, nor in many other places of the world. Ask someone in the U.S. about Kazakhstan, and many people will respond with “Borat.” The movie “Borat” was not even shot in Kazakhstan, but in Romania, and the scenes in the movie are a [...]
The efforts at health care reform now working its way through the hallowed halls of our government is something that should deeply anger all Americans, left and right, Democrat or Republican or Independent. Nothing that comes from these current efforts will ever solve the agony and suffering of tens of millions of Americans who are [...]
To President Obama’s Nobel Prize speech, we have a mixed and strange response coming out of the country. From a Peace Prize recipient, we are so used to a lofty vision, a vision of achievable peace, that Obama’s words about the necessity of war to achieve peaceful ends falls like a dull thud upon our [...]