[2229] in peace2
"feed thine enemy" campaign
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kaia M Dekker)
Wed Feb 12 20:42:49 2003
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:42:20 -0500 (EST)
From: Kaia M Dekker <kaia@MIT.EDU>
To: <peace-announce@MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.33L.0302122041200.22551-100000@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu>
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A great concept, I think.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 20:13:53 -0500
From: Lydia Catherine Conklin <conklin@fas.harvard.edu>
To: feathers@fas.harvard.edu, babowman@fas.harvard.edu, jmkim@fas.harvard.edu,
rhpotts@fas.harvard.edu, poorman@fas.harvard.edu, jewelmt@aol.com,
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mattw@blogic.com, gschuetz@fas.harvard.edu, eagle@fas.harvard.edu,
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Cc: BGLTSA <bgltsa-open@hcs.harvard.edu>
Subject: [Bgltsa-open] RICE
There is a grassroots campaign underway to
>protest war in Iraq in a simple, but potentially powerful way.
>
>Place 1/2 cup uncooked rice in a small plastic bag (a snack-size bag or
>sandwich bag work fine). Squeeze out excess air and seal the bag. Wrap it
>in a piece of paper on which you have written,
>
>"If your enemies are hungry, feed them. Romans 12:20. Please send this
>rice to the people of Iraq; do not attack them."
>
>Place the paper and bag of rice in an envelope (either a letter-sized or
>padded mailing envelope--both are the same cost to mail) and address them
>to:
>
>
>
>President George Bush
>White House,
>
>1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
>Washington, DC 20500
>
>
>
>Attach $1.06 in postage. (Three 37-cent stamps equal $1.11.) Drop this in
>the mail TODAY. It is important to act NOW so that President Bush gets the
>letters ASAP. In order for this protest to be effective, there must be
>hundreds of thousands of such rice deliveries to the White House.
>
>We can do this if you each forward this message to your friends and family.
>There is a positive history of this protest! In the 1950s, Fellowship of
>Reconciliation began a similar protest, which is credited with influencing
>President Eisenhower against attacking China. Read on: "In the mid-1950s,
>the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in the
>Chinese mainland, launched a 'Feed Thine Enemy' campaign. Members and
>friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice to the White House with a
>tag quoting the Bible, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him." As far as anyone
>knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure. The
>President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly; certainly, no
>rice was ever sent to China. "What nonviolent activists only learned a
>decade later was that the campaign played a significant, perhaps even
>determining role in preventing nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was
>on, President Eisenhower met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider
>U.S. options in the conflict with China over two islands, Quemoy and Matsu.
> The generals twice recommended the use of nuclear weapons. President
>Eisenhower each time turned to his aide and asked how many little bags of
>rice had come in. When told they numbered in the tens of thousands,
>Eisenhower told the generals that as long as so many Americans were
>expressing active interest in having the U.S. feed the Chinese, he
>certainly wasn't going to consider using nuclear weapons against them."
>
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