{"id":3986,"date":"2003-03-04T11:20:15","date_gmt":"2003-03-04T16:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3986"},"modified":"2003-03-04T11:20:15","modified_gmt":"2003-03-04T16:20:15","slug":"let_it_begin_wi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/04\/let_it_begin_wi.html","title":{"rendered":"Let it begin with me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lileks has a typically marvelous article<\/a> about (among other things) some materials that Gnat’s pre-school class made available to parents to help them “explain” what all this “war” stuff is about.<\/p>\n

The materials <\/a>basically say, “Peace is always the answer! Trust the UN!” Lileks offers a nice dissection of some of the more glaringly silly statements included, but he left out one section worth noting:<\/p>\n

Ask your child to imagine the combined power of people all over the world, living peace, demanding it from their governments, and seeking smart but peaceful ways to deal conflict. Share the story below of the Danish resistance movement from the wonderful book, \u201cA Force More Powerful,\u201d by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall.
\nDuring World War II, the people of Denmark decided to use their brains instead of violence to defy the Nazi\u2019s. The Danes worked together to devise a strategy that defied the Germans who intended to kill the Jewish people of Denmark. How did they do it? By standing strong and asserting their power peacefully: they had mass strikes and protests, they created a secret system for saving the lives of Jewish citizens, they refused to honor curfews, they had students refuse to speak German in language classes, and they even had Danish songfests throughout the nation to show strength and unity.
\nThrough the combination of all of these acts of resistance, the power and unity of the Danes pushed back the Nazi’s. By the time October 1st, 1943, rolled around — the date the Nazi’s ordered the arrest of 7000 Jews — a system was firmly in place for saving them. Danish organizations throughout the country sheltered Jewish families and shuttled them to the coast, where fishing boats helped them escape to freedom. As a result, close to 6600 of 7000 people, whose lives were marked for death, were saved. This happened without the use of violence.<\/p>\n

Too bad about the 400 who weren’t saved. Perhaps a few more Danish songfests would have done the trick.<\/p>\n

Of course, you might ask what stopped the Nazis from simply marching in a few SS divisions and simply killing anyone who wasn’t cooperating, Jewish or not? Might it have been … well, ah, violence <\/i>that was being offered up in resistance to the Nazis in Russia and Italy, in the air from Britain, and by partisans in the Balkans, in Norway, in France, and, yes, even in Denmark<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Perish the thought! After all, we all know that peace is always the answer, and that if we’d just tried to address the “root causes” behind Axis aggression, all that nasty war stuff could have been avoided.<\/p>\n

Right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lileks has a typically marvelous article about (among other things) some materials that Gnat’s pre-school class made available to parents to help them “explain” what all this “war” stuff is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1440,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/01\/05\/calling_a_spade.html","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":0},"title":"Calling a spade a spade (so to speak)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 5-Jan-02 1:04am","format":false,"excerpt":"James Lileks rants on Peace Schools and the idea that all cultures are equally wonderful. There are some people whose hackles prick up and twitch if you say the West...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1850,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/04\/19\/kids.html","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":1},"title":"Kids","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Apr-02 3:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As I sit here, Kitten in my lap, I recommend to you James Lileks' comments about having kids. He puts it very nicely....","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2041,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/21\/screed.html","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":2},"title":"Screed","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 21-Mar-02 6:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know what it is about Michael Moore that gets folks' dander up. Actually, I do know, but regardless, I'm glad James Lileks is one of the bedandered....","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4537,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/08\/11\/footnote.html","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":3},"title":"Footnote","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 11-Aug-03 8:33am","format":false,"excerpt":"Oddly enough, I got three e-mail on Friday about my blog, none of them on the same subject. One that caught my eye (and which I was going to blog...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3357,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/12\/16\/pizza.html","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":4},"title":"Pizza","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 16-Dec-02 8:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, with both Lileks and Anne weighing in on pizza experiences, it's time for my own opinion on the blessed disks. Like Lileks, I like lots of sauce. No, not...","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":390,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/24\/the_cookie.html","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":5},"title":"The Cookie","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 24-Apr-03 8:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"A tale that will sound familiar to any parent, courtesy of Lileks: Finish your milk. Cookie. Milk. COOKIE! I picked up the cookie. \"Finish your milk, or I'll eat the...","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}