Forget Hallmark and Big Flora -- Mother's Day is (and always has been) for radicals!

[kpete]

Forget Hallmark and Big Flora -- Mother's Day is (and always has been) for radicals:

Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society in fighting for an end to all wars. She called for women to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother, to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons.

Howe wrote:
Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

Arise then...women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

The rest:
http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=217
http://agonist.org/matttbastard/20120513/reappropriating_mothers_day

[otherone]

1. thanks for the reminder

:kick:

[malthaussen]

2. Julia Ward Howe, eh?

And wasn't she the lady who wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic?"

Somehow, I have difficulty in reconciling the two poems.

-- Mal

[KarenS]

3. Interesting, isn't it?

From anti-slavery to anti-war,,,,

your comment caused me to go read about it,,,, eight years and the Civil War made a difference for her.


And KPete Thank you for posting this poem !!

[ashling]

4. Honor Mother’s Day by Telling Our Leaders to Invest in Peacebuilding!

http://www.change.org/petitions/honor-mother-s-day-by-telling-our-leaders-to-invest-in-peacebuilding?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition&utm_term=autopublish

?1336451987

[annabanana]

5. (the whole thing)

Mother’s Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or tears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail & commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesars but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

[malthaussen]

6. I wish I could find the reference...

This is driving me crazy, but oh, well. I think it was in the third volume of Sassoon's "autobiography," where he discusses his involvement in the Pacifist movement, that he quotes a Declaration by the Mothers of Britain in support of WW I. Note, I say support -- the declaration did not ask that the bloodshed be stopped, nor that their children be brought home, but that the sacrifices should continue until a "just result" was obtained. It is strange, but true, that there has always been this ambivilence of mothers towards war -- while the fiancee of Horatius may have been killed by her own father for weeping when Horatius went off to war, other women have cheered, thrown flowers, and encouraged their sons in many ways to go off into harm's way. I particularly like one anectdote from the US Civil War, where after cheering and feting a new Massachusetts regiment about to set out for the Army of the Potomac, a delegation of mothers approached the colonel and told him that they relied upon him to bring every one of their brave sons home after victory was won. There seems to be a peculiar disconnect there, between the Justice and Glory of the Cause (whatever that Cause might be), and the blood and vomit that fighting to defend that Cause brings.

-- Mal

[LiberalEsto]

7. Julia was also a Unitarian

Good biographical info at link:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/howejuliaward/a/julia_ward_howe_1_early.htm