Creating a Culture of Peace

Former CCP executive director Janet Chisholm was featured in a radio interview by Len Ellis, peace activist and director of the Dallas Peace Center, in the series "Peace begins with ME."  The 30-minute interview, which aired on March 9, 2012, is available for streaming via the following link:
www.co-creatornetwork.com/guests/Chisholm_Janet/_biohtm

Famed sociologist Frances Fox Piven and labor organizer Stephen Lerner were recently interviewed by Democracy Now on how Occupy Wall Street could grow into a major political movement that draws millions into the streets. "I’m absolutely convinced that Occupy is the beginning of another massive protest movement," Fox Piven says. "Protest movements have a long life—10, 15 years—and they are what we have to rely on to take our country back." "I think there’s never been a more exciting time in my 30 years of organizing to imagine building the kind of movement that can transform the country, that can really talk about redistributing wealth and power," Lerner says. "And there’s never a better time to get involved."
View full program on www.democracynow.org.

The CCP circle of truths exercise is a transforming experience that engenders surprising respect and understanding toward opponents. It also is an effective tool for planning nonviolent actions. We know that a growing child eventually develops the cognitive and emotional maturity to conceptually "put herself in someone else's shoes." It is this ability to role-take that is practiced and refined in the circle of truths exercise.

Role-taking is a skill that oppressed people master in order to deal effectively and nonviolently with their oppressors. This same skill can help us develop humane responses in situations where there are inequalities of power--through knowing the heart and mind of others, a concern for how we will appear to them, and a motivation for cooperation.