Spirit in Action
Peace Sign of the Times - PeaceButtons.info
Carl Bunin is founder of PeaceButtons.info, and he's provided over 110,000 peace buttons to the world (plus lots of other stuff) and he provides a "This Week in Peace & Social Justice" email newsletter, mapping out the movements and actions that have produced remarkable changes in the last century. Formerly on the front of demonstrations, teach-ins, and the like, Carl now does his bit for the peace movement from a wheelchair, due to MS, but it's hardly slowed him down at all.
- Broadcast on:
- 25 Nov 2012
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along I'm very pleased to welcome Carl Bunnen for today's Spirit in Action. Not too many people have heard of Carl, but he provides a valuable multifaceted service to peace activists everywhere with his website and service called peacebuttons.info His flagship product was and his little peace symbol signs, though he produces wide variety of other buttons and products for activists. But perhaps the most helpful gift Carl distributes is his free weekly email, Peace and Justice newsletter, highlighting this week in history events from past years. Carl Bunnen started out in the demonstrations and activism fronts of the anti-war movement of the 1960s, and he continues supporting the message and work for peace and justice, these days from a wheelchair due to the advancing impact of multiple sclerosis. Carl Bunnen continues the very active struggle for peace and open minds from his wheelchair and he'll join us after a little warm-up music. Musingly, the band is war, but the song is peace sign. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] So you were at least theoretically going to the university at this time. Did you remember to study? Oh, yeah. Yes. I liked all my classes. And in fact, many of the teachers, professors, teaching assistants I had were like-minded. What were you studying? Is it something that led you into the work that you now do with peace buttons, that info, this kind of thing? I was studying sociology at the time. Never wound up professional in that. I did go to graduate school briefly, but I had decided when I was in graduate school that I didn't really like it. It was odd. It was too political for me, meaning that the departmental politics were more prominent than the politics of the world. So I wanted to- if I was going to spend this much time in politics, I wanted it to make a difference not inside of the department, inside of a university, but inside of the university. But inside of this society and the plan is as a whole. So I went into printing from there. And is this as a technical field? What way are you working as a printer? Well, when I decided to leave graduate school, I moved to Detroit and started working with a printing collective, which was kind of owned and operated by the employees. And we did lots of printing for nonprofits, commissions. And nonprofits, community organizations, political organizations. A lot of the unions in Detroit, particularly the auto workers, the teamsters, et cetera, they all had rank and file movements at the time. We would print for those groups. So I learned the technical aspects and most of what we printed, although we did some commercial work, was for progressive, liberal community, nonprofit, that kind of customer base. Through that, I was able to learn more about the various issues and things like that. You know, when you say that you were part of a collective that has Bolshevik tone to it, it was sort of like in today's society, you would instantly be branded, of course, a socialist. And that would be a dirty word. I suppose back then it would be a little bit different. Well, you know, we were still operating in the capitalist society, but the decisions were made collectively, but we were working in an economy, which was not socialist. The politics, though, from the late sixties to the current day, I've heard it said that from the point of view of the current Republican candidates, you know, over the past year, that Richard Nixon would look liberal compared to all of them. Well, absolutely. What you're saying is true. Now, the way I got familiar with you, Carl, and the way I tracked you down was because mailing I got via email. It's a little weekly thing that gives some highlights of history of politics, perhaps of liberal politics, perhaps peace history, maybe is the best name for it. I think that's what you call it. Peace history from, I don't know, last 100 to 100 years. That's what got me interested in going to peace buttons.info. I went there and I found a wealth of quotes and other information. So could you talk to me about the genesis of peace buttons on info and of this history and what's your objective with it, of course, too? About a month after 9/11, I was kind of grasping for something to do about it as one individual. So I started with that a little peace button, just a one inch black button with a white peace symbol, and I started sending out emails, and I got a lot of response. Now, at that time, it was all done by email, no website, and out of a post office box. And I dubbed this button, the little button with a big message. And really, what I wanted to do was to have an inexpensive item that could initiate a conversation, and it turns out that it did, because to date, I sold over maybe 109,000 of these buttons all over the world. But what I do is I attach it to a little history card, which is a brief description of how the symbol was conceived. The origin of the symbol, if the listeners don't know, it was designed for a demonstration in 1958, led by the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, Bertrand Russell was one of the leaders. The symbol itself was designed by graphic artist named Gerald Holton, and this history is on the website. So really, what I wanted to do was I wanted to make the project educational and informational, and that's why I chose the website name when I later developed the website called peacebuttons.info. Now, in terms of the history, a couple of years after I started producing these buttons, I started in my emails using a signature, which is a significant event in peace or social justice history for the day that the email that I was writing to email. From there, it just kind of grew and grew and grew, so now I have a whole year's worth of peace and social justice history. What I try to focus on when I can find them is individuals or small groups of people who have decided to take action and do things based on their convictions. One of my biggest accomplishments for me was when teachers started emailing me, telling me that they were using peace history in their classes to use the items as a jumping off point for discussion. Because as we know, the regular text books are written from a different perspective. Quite certainly, that's the case. There is a member of our local peace group here, folks who get together each month for the stand, his name, Marin Bucholz. He's a history professor at a local high school, and it's amazing how bringing out this information is so revelatory to people because so much of it's hidden. So I really think that what you're doing with this week in history is so necessary to getting a full picture of what's happened in our history. Why do you think that so much of it is invisible? Well, I'd have to say that it doesn't really fit into the media mode. For one reason or another, other media's think that people would not be interested in this. It doesn't really sell products, or on a grander scale, it's the textbook producers. I just feel that they are so politically embedded into the quote unquote official history of the United States in the world that they really don't want people to see that they can and have made a difference. I think I was particularly frightened by hearing the way that in Texas where they can vote to make sure you exclude certain portions from history, that that cascades and affects so much of the history product that we're getting in books in all the other states because they're so large. They carry a lot of weight. Right, right. That seems to be the standard for the rest of the country as one has been set in Texas. You've certainly reviewed a lot of historical information to include it in this weekly mailing that you put out from piecebuttons.info. Are there any items that if you could just grab these one, two, three, five items and put them in our history books, you think that it would open so many eyes and change the course of this country? Can you pick out some of the historical tidbits? In general, what seems to be the case is that every piece of legislation which is presented in the history books like the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Right of Women to Vote, et cetera, they all were propelled by a movement. In other words, massive demonstrations in Washington and lots of little local actions are what made this legislation possible. Now, the normal history books really don't mention that much. So, like regulations in terms of the environment and things like that, they all start from the ground up. I guess that's what you'd describe in his history from the ground up, and what we also try to do at piecebuttons.info is the buttons that are produced. Many of them come from activists in other parts of the country from where I am. For example, one person in Indiana emailed me and said, "I really would be interested in getting some no-drowned buttons." Now, that's an emerging movement. It's a tough movement because there are jobs involved in building them and they have two plants in Indiana that are making them, but she has a group that she's starting that wants to bring this issue to light. Or someone in Kentucky in the middle of coal country, the coal industry has a big program since coal is your friend. Whilst you commissioned me to make a button, coal is not your friend. Now, I get requests for those from people in Texas because that's the way it spreads. It's an inexpensive item. I frequently call buttons the people's billboard because you can't afford major media, but it's enough to spark a conversation people find. And that is one of my goals. It's like, let's have a real discussion about the issues. You know, when you say let's have a discussion of the issues, bumper stickers, buttons, this kind of thing, they're clearly not the discussion of the issues because you can't get cohesive discussion of really important issues down to that. But as you said, it can spark it. You're trying to get a message out quickly, simply, and provoke a discussion. Unfortunately, we've seen the presidential debates recently, and didn't it feel to you, I assume, that you watched them, that at best they were providing buttons themselves and not going into the substantive underpinnings of these arguments? Yes, I mean, well, I don't really know about the debates. I mean, I watched them. I think that they are very much so the lowest common denominator, and much of what's said is not policy related, but trying to capture certain demographics. Again, your site is peacebuttons.info. When I started the website, I had to register it. And when I saw that, that was an option, as opposed to a .org or a .com. When I saw that .info was available, I said, "That's me. That's what I want to do." In your weekly newsletter, you have all kinds of moments in history. Some of them, imagine some people might not be clear how this is connected to peace. Well, technically, it's called the "Peace in Social Justice History." So there are things that have to do with social justice. There are even things that have to do with war in there, which kind of makes sense when you look at the peace movement, and it's always are many times they're responding to war. Unfortunately, it's my own impression that we'd have far fewer wars if the peace movement were proactive instead of reactive. And of course, by getting out this peace newsletter, you and yourself were reacting to 911 in the whole movement towards war in this country. Oh, yeah, when they started rattling the sabers, but you know what I think is interesting? I think, while we're speaking about the anti-war movement in terms of the Vietnam War, there was a draft, but it took a very long time for the movement to build years and years. However, with the Internet, if you look at the war in Iraq, it was really within such a short period of time that you had millions and millions and billions of people all over the world demonstrating before the war erupted, before the invasion began. In previous technology, that would have taken years to create. So I think that our technology now has accelerated the thing. My peace project, I can't imagine how it would work in a non-Internet world or a pre-Internet world. So I think to make use of the tools that we have to communicate, and I think the Internet is a great way to do it, but be aware and remember that people did it before the Western Internet. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. You were active heavily during the Vietnam War, and after 911, when the saber rattling was happening, you got involved again. You weren't quiescent in between, were you? Were you an activist all through there? And how did you see the activist movement's growing, shrinking in those years? Well, personal biography was that within that print collective, which went out of business, say '89, I got another job with a large old Union printer, Aaron Detroit, who actually was called a good real printing. But it was a family business. In fact, I don't know whether you're listeners now about the Battle of the Overpass, which was down in Dearborn, Michigan, again Ford Motor Company. Those flyers were printed at the company that I worked for at night by Union printers, and then distributed the next morning. So there was a lot of history where I was working in terms of printing for civil rights activists here in Detroit, printing for the Union movement here in Detroit. Concurrently with that, I went off and had a family. So kind of like pulled back on my political responsibilities in favor of my familial responsibilities. Then I got ill and I'm confined to the wheelchair now, so I don't really have the opportunity to go to many demonstrations, teachings, things like that today. But I'm trying to use the internet to make the contribution, either through helping people produce buttons and bumper stickers and also spreading this history, which I think is so important, especially for young people. What do you think it is that is responsible for the fact that we're in Afghanistan is the longest American war that has ever been? Why did it outlast the Vietnam war? I think you're looking at a very multifaceted answer to that. Let's not forget that Soviet Union was in Afghanistan for over a decade as well. The main fact that there were people in the streets in Vietnam was that there was a draft, and there's not a draft. I think it's so sad that after Katrina, when people were put into the stadium, the U.S. Army, that's where they recruited from. Or they would go to a strip mall and a very depressed community in Flint, Michigan to recruit for military expeditions. So the situation is a little bit different now. That's, I think, what propelled the anti-war movement in the '60s and in Vietnam was the fact that there was a draft. Did you particularly face the draft? Did you resist? You were in college. Couldn't you have any deferment? I did have a deferment, but then in the lottery, I think I drew number 11 or number 13, and there was kind of a loophole, which if you gave up your deferment and you weren't drafted by the end of the year, then you were no longer 1A, and I took that chance. However, you know, my parents were prepared to relocate out of the country. So you just lucked out and didn't get drafted? That's right, because I gave up my deferment voluntarily. For those who just tuned in, you're listening to Spirit in Action, a Northern Spirit radio production. I'm your host, Mark. Helps me our website, northernspiritradio.org. We've got more than seven years of programs on our site. You can come to, listen to, download them, make comments. And another thing that we love to have you do is donate because it's through your efforts that we are able to continue this service. We are trying to reach out and find the voices of those people making a difference in this world. As is Carl Bunnen, who is our guest today. He is from piecebuttons.info. If you check that information out, you'll find a number of different resources that he provides for the world. It's his work currently. He used to be out there on the front lines protesting and working in many other ways, being limited to a wheelchair these days. He found the internet to be a valuable tool. If you go to piecebuttons.info, you can get his weekly piece and social justice history newsletter emailed to you. And so you can find some really very interesting tidbits in there. You know, as well as the weekly history that comes out, there's also a portal on the website where you can look up any date. See what happens in piece and justice on your birthday or any day, really. That is the main book, so to speak, and that's where I draw the weekly items. Now, not every item in the whole history makes it into every week, but most of them do. By the way, I thought I should reassure you, Carl, that some of your buttons have made it to the Eau Claire area just this past month when we were doing our stand against the war. One of the members showed up with a number of them buttons, so I'm holding right here one of your buttons that was passed on to me. You know what I found quite interesting was right after the war started, the invasion of Iraq, I would get numerous emails from people saying, "Can you please send me 25 buttons? I have to make a trip to Europe, and I don't want to be seen as the war of modern American." In fact, on the website, there is a page which lists every location that I know these buttons have gone to. There's a lot of cities and a lot of countries all over the world. I guess it's my version of stamp collecting. So you've gotten these buttons to go all over the world. The piece buttons, is this the only buttons that you're producing, assuming that you're actually the one who's physically producing them or your company is? How does this work? The way it works is that I would design the button or have like-minded graphic artists design a button about an issue. And then I would send this to a union printer here in Detroit who prints them. And then I have another friend who has the machine that cuts out the papers and sandwiches them all onto the metal and the tin, et cetera. But you know, even the piece symbol, you know, I didn't know like if somebody had that or what the deal was. I knew this CMD in Britain. It was developed for them. So I sent him an email saying, "Listen, I've been producing these things and I don't know what the situation really is." And they said, "I found on their website that says we encourage and appreciate spreading the use of the symbol. We don't want it to be commercialized in selling jeans or, you know, something like that." And I said, "The donations are always appropriate." So I emailed them, never heard back from them. So just sent them a bunch of buttons. I'll say one interesting story was that, remember when Tim Robbins got the Academy Award, I think, for Mystic River? I was on my laptop and my phone started ringing. It was people saying, "Tim Robbins is wearing your button at the ceremony, at the invitation." So then the local news called me up. And what had happened was he and Susan Sorend were about to receive the awards at Cooperstown for what was that baseball movie they were in. And it was the anniversary of Africa. But he came out against the war. And at that time, there weren't many people speaking out against the Iraq war. So I found an address for his publicist who was a New York address and was a California address. So I sent him some buttons just as a thank you for doing the right thing. And I never heard back from anyone. But then people said, "That looks like a button. He's wearing your button because it's kind of distinctive. I wanted the thing not to look the machine. Like, I was about to go to press on the thing and I had a perfectly geometrical peace symbol. In the back of my mind, I knew. I said, "I don't really think I want something that looks like it was pumped out of the machine." So I use the famous being a printer. The famous thing stopped the presses. And I went back and didn't look like more like a hand gun one. You have a button in front of you. You'll see it's not perfect. One leg is a little bit because it's something that it's a work in progress. It's a process. And I felt that that conveyed it better than something that looked like it was mass produced. Perfect. Sure. Makes sense to me. It became more human at that point. And I think that's what makes my little button a little bit unique. And people seem to like it. Well, there's good reasons for it. Are there other products that you're making besides buttons? Yeah. It started with that button, but I also make shirts, stickers. There's things that make some noise at demonstrations like tazoos and whistles. There's quite a few hats, bandanas, et cetera. From the button and a few other buttons like we also put out the original piece stubs from the 1968 and 1969 Vietnam moratorium. Symbols are very powerful. And I don't know if you remember that. Do you remember the ecology symbol? It's kind of like a ellipse with a line in the middle of it. That was originally designed by an artist named Lon Cobb in '67 for the first Earth Day. It was immediately put into the public domain by him. So we reissued that. And if someone purchases one of those, there's a little hand bill, which explains how Ron can see for that design. So these are little things embellishments that once people hear the history, I think it means something different to them. You made the comment that symbols are powerful. I'm sure some people have the question. Does getting things out like buttons or bumper stickers, all this? Does this really make a difference? Do you have some way of measuring that? Or how would you think it influences things? I'll give you an example. Some years back, I got an emergency email from a woman whose future son-in-law was killed in Iraq. And the body was being transported back here for memorial service. And she said, "Can you please overnight a couple hundred buttons for the memorial service?" Which I did. A couple weeks or a month later, she emailed me back and thanked me and said, "I was so shocked that there were some people that refused to take a button. Even a simple thing like a peace button had a memorial service." She ended her email saying, "It just goes to show how much work we still have to do." So, I think that it does have the power for people to make a commitment to it. Another interesting little side story about the peace symbol itself, which is based on -- well, on that little card it describes that it was based on the international semaphore alphabet, which is the way ships would communicate to each other with flags and it actually stands for nuclear disarmament. John Birch Society here, when it became popular here, the symbol called it a footprint of the American chicken. So symbols are powerful. I think that if the buttons about whatever issue start a conversation, that it's only healthy. I guess we could equally well say that a flag is a symbol that clearly some people are willing to die for their flags, so they'll die for their symbol. And I guess the hope is that those of us on the anti-war side of things are willing to fully live and work for our symbol of peace. You know, once a person on the right wing side of the thing says, "Well, for you to be fair, you should put out a probe war button." I said, "I think they already have those. They're called medals." Also, you know, when people say, "Well, how many buttons have you gotten out so far?" My answer is always the same. Obviously, not enough. Well, you may not have completely changed the world, Carl, but there's obviously a lot you have achieved and minds that you've awakened by distributing more than 100,000 peace buttons, plus all the rest that you do. As I've already mentioned, symbols are powerful, the peace sign being one of them, but another one that some of us may see as competing in the American mind is the American flag. It's up to us to harness and direct the energies of our symbols. Carl, you do that through your peace sign buttons, and one of my favorite musicians, John McCutchen, does it for the American flag with his song. Our flag was still there. John McCutchen. I can see it's so clear. The very first time I met a game with my dad, and I was eight, maybe nine. We all rose to our feet before the ballgame could start. We took off our caps. We put our hands to our hearts. It was more than a banner. It was more than a song. I sang because I believed. I sang because I belonged. I sang for all those who dreamed. For all those who dared, we looked to the heights, and our flag was still there. I see it passing on cars. I see it passing for war. I see it passing for patriotism. We've all seen that before. I've seen it used as a weapon to brand some as wrong. The one has the right to stand up and fight to say I belong. Because our flag is still there. For all the saints and the sinners. Yes, our flag is still there. For all the losers and winners. Those of us who still dream. Those of us who still bear. The outcast and forgotten. Our flag is still there. From Lawrence to Lexington, from Concord to Kent, in Seattle and Selma, we are born of descent. And on this native ground, blessed by immigrant blood. In the river of freedom, we're all washed in the flood. Because our flag is still there. For all the saints and the sinners. Yes, our flag is still there. For all the losers and winners. Those of us who still dream. Those who still bear. All the lost and forgotten. Flag is still there. Still there though we might disagree. If you are brave in the land of the free. We have weathered so much. We have traveled so far. We are woven together. We are spangled with stars. [Music] So as we take off our caps. And as we all rise. Put our hands to our hearts. And as we lift up our eyes. We begin with a question. We ask of say can you see. Stand and be strong. Believe and belong. Be brave and be free. Because our flag is still there. For all the saints and the sinners. Yes, our flag is still there. For all the losers and winners. Those of us who still dream. Those of us who still bear. For everyone in this country. Flag is still there. [Music] This song was our flag was still there. But John McCutchen. Providing what may be a fresh perspective on the flag. A powerful national symbol. Today's spirit and action guest is Carl Bunion. And he's been a worker on the front lines of peace and social justice for decades. Including widely distributing peace sign buttons. Plus a this week in peace and social justice history email newsletter. And much more. His work has been diligent and sustained. A statement that is especially impressive in light of his advancing MS. That has combined him to a wheelchair. You know Carl with your peace button newsletter. You call our attention to a lot of good work. Others have done. But in addition to what's been done. I think it's important to see if there's a pattern in where the motivation for this work comes from. So one of the things I like to do as part of my program is to research what motivates people so strongly. Sometimes it's coming of age at a particular moment which I'm sure was influential for many of us. Like you and me coming to consciousness at the time of the Vietnam War. But for you Carl is there any specifically spiritual and that may be religious but certainly spiritual perspective that made you value peace more than perhaps the average voter these days. That's an interesting question. I have to say that I'm a non-believer in religion, organized religion or whatever. But I will say that when I was in a demonstration or at some kind of teaching or meeting in a church with a lot of blood-minded people who were motivated by their ethics for good. And I shared that I got a feeling of this is my church. I felt like I was in a church when I was in the presence of a mass of people who thought the way that I did and were motivated by humanity and doing something about it. So that's really what motivated me. It was kind of like a experience which I sought after and craved. That's basically my motivation being in contact with people be on the Internet or in person, all sharing common goals. Did you have a religious upbringing of some sort? I was raised in Judaism, in foreign Judaism, although the grandfathers of left Russia he was a self-proclaimed agnostic. So perhaps more of a culturally Jewish family as opposed to religiously. Exactly, yes. One of the perspectives that I formed, and again, I'm Quaker, so I am religious, but of course it's probably one of the religions that's least offensive to many people because we don't have any of the structures, we don't have creeds, we don't have all the things that so many people react against in religion. Are there many entries about Quakers in the peace history? Certainly that's woven into our history. Yeah, it's completely integral to who we are as a spiritual body. And perhaps the word spiritual works better than religious because we lack so many of those characteristics of religion. But one of the things that I found interesting as I've interviewed people for these past seven years for spirit and action is so many of us are perhaps toward the spiritual but not religious. We have this big picture of what's good and wonderful in the world. We don't want to put it in too small of a box. There was a poster that was very popular at the time of the late 60s. It's something like, "You go your way, I go my way, you do your thing, I do my thing." If we meet, it's great, and if we don't, well that's fine too. You know what I'm referring to, that poster? No, I'm not familiar with that. I'll try to Google it. Well, it's out there and it was pretty influential and it was part of the movement of the time. When I've been thinking about this, I suspect that that could almost be a plant from the other side of the aisle or the other side of the issue to say, "How can we make these people less effectual with their policies?" Because if they don't bind together as a union, and you know how strongly unions transform this country, if they don't bind together as a real strong community, then we can pick them off one by one. If we don't hang together, then we're lacking some of the essential power that of course unions brought to transforming our country, and that is so integral to what we call the left in this country that in some ways, I think it undermines our transforming power for this country. You know, it's like hurting cats to get liberals to work together on anything. While the Republicans, I think in most cases, are able to act as a concerted group in Congress, the Democrats end up shooting each other more often than not. Oh, yeah, it's the thing where they're very together, and it's the old story of divine and conquer, and segue that into their promotion of the me generation and to hell with everybody else. We're not going to get to a very good place, in my opinion, in that way, I mean, this is the nature of humanity. This is our survival mechanism is to be social. So I guess my point was that on the liberal end of things, we're somewhat antisocial. That is to say, we always keep one foot in and one foot out. Now, obviously, so much of your work is calling people to work together for peace and justice. But doesn't it feel like sometimes you're working against the grains, like, can we really get 12 of us into a room degree on something? It is a dilemma. I mean, because our side, if there is a side, is more open to hearing other people's opinions, whereas the right wing, as you say, they're unified, but it's really a unification of non-critical thought. They get their talking points handed down in the morning, and you'll see them all day on the news. Yeah, I think it does work that way. Of course, I don't want to make a them and an us. I mean, there's really, we're all us on this planet. But there are behavioral differences that we can see that because the liberal point of view keeps us not marching in step, we have more creative energy, we have more diversity, and sometimes that means we get closer to the truth because we're not limited by the norm. That's what I would imagine. I have to continue to agree with you there. But the conundrum in there is how do we have power working together if we're not holding arm and arm as the unions would have done, for instance, where they die for one another. It made such a difference to me when I realized, and one of the reasons I started this radio program, was my realization that spiritual communities, and I consider, by the way, unions to be spiritual communities, have such power, but that there had been a loss of that on the left, such that our efforts were going for not. I mean, we were quickly being undermined in a way that wouldn't depend if we were strongly united. And so, while obviously I'm part of a Quaker group, which has this explicit title of religious, you know, you know enough from history to know that Quakers don't work like other religions. But that spiritual bond of community, we speak about creating communities on the left, but you know how hard it is. If you're part of a collective, you know what kind of, it's not easy. Well, even with six people, it's tear your head. You know, you've got thousands of people, you know. Yeah, and when you do it with unions, I mean, obviously unions can go down the wrong road just like any other organization, but they can also achieve tremendous good. And so you just look at the balance of what they produce and say, well, maybe that's the best way to grab this power and put it into effect in the world. That's how I look at it. So I started this program after the 2004 election, where it was touted that the right-wing evangelicals were such an influential portion of the vote. Now, again, I think the election was stolen, just like this one, maybe. Who knows? You know, if Romney owns the voting machines in Ohio, do you really think that he's not going to do the same thing that Jeb did? Here's a weird one for you that happened to me after the 2000 election. I have this company called Infinity Software Solutions, Computer Programmer Consultant. Several years after the 2000 election, I was contacted by lawyers saying, we represent a company that has trademarked the name Infinity and Computer Stuff, and so you have to stop using your name, or we'll sue you. Now, my company predated theirs, but it turns out there were like 10 companies across the country who were using the name Infinity Computer Infinity Software and Computer, you know, some variation of it. And we were all being threatened by these lawyers. The company that these lawyers were representing was, it's a company in Florida. I had the information then fed to me about what this company has done. The owner of this company is a good buddy of Jeb Bush. 90% of their income at the time was coming from non-compete agreements with the state of Florida, and they were hired to purge the expired voter registration rolls, you know. And in 2000, do you remember in Florida the tens of thousands who were turned away from the polls, they're not registered in heavily democratic areas? This company, non-compete contract from Jeb Bush, they turned it away and made Florida go for W. At least that's my take on it. So anyway, I was so appalled that there's a company using my company's name, more or less, and then they had the nerve to come tell me that they had a trademark on the name. Well, the only way they got their stupid trademark on the name is because they gave the election to W and so in return, he's giving the name and taking away from me when my claim predates theirs. I've heard of a couple other instances, like in California, there's a bunch of retired guys playing horse polo, and they had polo in their newsletter. And Ralph Lauren attorneys called them up and said, "You gotta stop using this or something, so yes." You know, I mean, how insecure. There was another couple who retired out of Montana. He would raise sheep, and she would knit sweaters, and they called their name Montana Knits. And I think Joe Montana Corporation went after him. Can you believe that? It's so amazing, yeah. The idiocy. One thing that among the conclusions that I've learned is every game has to be protected. There are forces out there that are willing to take back gains that have been made by people acting collectively. Like, if you look at the voter suppression, if you look at the history of that, people really bound together, sacrificed, some were even killed, beaten. And as soon as the guard seems to be let down, there are forces in the wings ready to reverse that. So it's a constant, constant defending and advancing. The beliefs that we have and have had in the past, and doing it with very little resources, not being very well funded, it's a challenge. It is a challenge, unfortunately. We've got your work, best exhibited perhaps via your website, peacebuttons.info. You, Carl Boonen, are for me a symbol of what's excellent about peace movement. In spite of your physical limitations, because of your encroaching MS, so many ways that you could be tempted just to turn inward and care only for yourself, but yet you're still reaching out to the wider country, to the wider movement, to the good of, I think, all humanity. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. So I appreciate so much your work, peacebuttons.info, is again the place to go. And I appreciate you taking this time, which I know exacts at all on you, joining me here for Spirit in Action. Well, Father, thanks for coming. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along, and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. (upbeat music)