Untitled painting done by Winslow Myers for the book Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide [2009]
In the early 1980s, a dynamic group of citizens from the Palo Alto California area became concerned about Cold War talk that "victory" was possible in a limited nuclear war. These citizens focused their talents and resources on creating an educational vehicle which they called Beyond War: A New Way of Thinking. With a curriculum both hard-hitting and hopeful, Beyond War sent people into a diverse grouping of states to do living room evenings which encouraged participants to think deeply about two broad and, at the time, seemingly radical principles: 1)The destructiveness of nuclear weapons has rendered all war obsolete, because any small war could draw in the major powers, and 2) We are one human family supported by one interdependent, interrelated life-support system. On the basis of such principles Beyond War was able to pull off an extraordinary set of peacebuilding projects that included the first satellite uplink connecting all continents to celebrate the Five Continent Peace Initiative. Beyond War worked to balance the stark truth of the challenge with the optimism of taking action on the basis of interdependence and good will. As the Cold War wound down toward the end of the 1980s, Beyond War added the climate crisis to its concerns. Survival requires action on the basis that we cannot continue to make war against each other and the Earth's biosphere. Come welcome to our show four Beyond Wars key officers: Winslow Myers, Libby Traubman and Margie & Tony Lee!
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