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| Links to Other Sites of Interest |
There are many thousands of groups, on and off the web, that work to improve some portion of the world. We can't list them all here, of course. Instead, this is a small sampling of websites that are devoted to improving the human condition in some way. If none of these interest you, a few minutes with any search engine will give you more to choose from. Or start your own group or website, aimed at whatever you think is important. All commentary below is personal opinion only; visit (and especially, do business with or donate to) these sites at your own risk.
Section One:
Sites directly related to improving the lives
of pregnant mothers, infants, and children
Birth Without Violence
This first link isn't an organization but instead a book - the book that started the "gentle birth" movement. How could "birth WITH violence" be a good thing?
The Compleat Mother
Articles, links, poetry, advice and more by a group that clearly values compassion more than orthodoxy.
Childbirth.org. A trove of information for parents-to-be
Lactations.com
"Daily inspiration for the nursing mother." A quotation, fact, or commentary on the subject every day. Also includes a link page and bulletin board. Coming soon: the Lactations Calendar.
Ask Dr. Sears
Devoted to attachment parenting (the link here is directly to their page on the subject) and related topics. Be sure to also see their page The Payoff: Our 6 observations on how AP kids turn out. Highly recommended.
Attachment Parenting International, another excellent resource on the topic.
Christian World Adoption Every child deserves a home.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, founded by the late Danny Thomas, helps children with life-threatening diseases. By all reports, it is one of the better-run charities anywhere.
NoSpank.net
Dedicated to ending violence against children -- which is far more a problem than many people think. The sign below is available as a sticker -- for your kid's backpack, your car's bumper, whatever . . .
NoPunish.net
Is it possible to raise a family without using punishment on the children? Yes! Norm Lee's inspiring personal story confirms that -- and shows that the chain of abuse CAN be broken.
Alice Miller's personal site
The author of For Your Own Good: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence and other works.
The Natural Child
The site hopes to help create " . . . a world in which all children are treated with dignity, respect, understanding, and compassion. In such a world, every child can grow into adulthood with a generous capacity for love and trust. Our society has no more urgent task."
Summerhill School
Subject of the 1960's bestseller by A. S. Neill. Founded in 1921, Summerhill continues to offer a practical example of how freedom (not "license" or "neglect") for children is not only workable, but actually healing. As one example of Summerhill's effects on children, consider reading the Report of H. M. Inspectors from 1949, which gives a detailed outsider's look at the School and affirms that freedom for children works, and works well.
Free and responsible children become free and responsible adults. No wonder Tony Blair's government tried to shut them down recently.
If more of our schools produced pupils as compassionate, as concerned for others, as free-minded, responsible, and self-confident as those of Summerhill, the world would be a far better and safer place.
Sudbury Valley School
See also The Sudbury Education Resource Network for more information, books, links, discussion, etc.
Sudbury Schools are the modern American, non-boarding-school equivalents of Summerhill. That's my characterization, not Summerhill's or Sudbury's. Another alternative schooling website is http://www.edrev.org/.
MaybeWeWouldBeAmazed
Carla Howell's website about the benefits of education without the involvement of government coercion. See in particular her facts page on Government vs Non-government schooling.
The Tibetan Children's Fund
One of several charities helping children displaced or orphaned by the Red Chinese occupation of Tibet. The link is to an article from the Denver Post, reproduced at the website of Woody Leonhard, a techie and author of several popular computer books, and co-founder of the Tibetan Children's Fund.
The Continuum Concept
This site is designed to spread the ideas of Jean Liedloff, who spent two and a half years in the jungles of South America and came away with an entirely different view of how children should be raised -- with (among other things) far more love and physical contact than Western children typically get. The rewards of "more love" for the children, for the parents, and for society as a whole are profound. The book, The Continuum Concept, is also a moving and a well-written story of adventure and discovery. An absolute must for anyone who cares about children or the human condition.
Los Niņos
A group that helps children in many countries, in a variety of ways, including adoption.
Section Two:
Sites related to more global or social methods of preserving, defending, and improving compassion, human rights,
and emotional health:
Dr. R. J. Rummel's "Power Kills" site
Police states are not conducive to love or compassion. This isn't "politics," it's a truth about how the human world works, and one that people in relatively free nations must continually keep in mind. In the twentieth century, governments worldwide murdered, on average, more than twice the number who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US every single day -- for a total of 262 million victims (this is a recently updated figure). That is about six times the number killed in all the wars of the twentieth century. Dr. Rummel is the world's foremost authority on the topic, and his site has more information about it than you'll ever want to know . . . but you really should know some of it.
Peace Pilgrim
A site dedicated to the memory of an amazing woman:
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Between 1953 and 1981 Peace Pilgrim walked more then 25,000 miles across the country spreading her message-This is the way of peace: "Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." Carrying in her tunic pockets her only possessions, she vowed, "I shall remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food." She talked with people on dusty roads and city streets, to church, college, civic groups, on TV and radio, discussing peace within and without.
Her pilgrimage covered the entire peace picture: peace among nations, groups, individuals, and the very important inner peace-because that is where peace begins.
She believed that world peace would come when enough people attain inner peace. Her life and work showed that one person with inner peace can make a significant contribution to world peace. [emphasis added]
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Another Peace Pilgrim site
Dr. Mary J. Ruwart's "Healing Our World"
This site includes a detailed table of contents for her book of that name. The book shows why and how non-aggression is the foundation of civil society and prosperity. Aggression destroys compassion -- and vice versa.
Dr. Arthur Janov's Primal Center
The website about Primal Theory and Primal Therapy. Includes much information about the damage done by mistreatment or neglect of children, infants, and pregnant mothers, as well as information about Primal Therapy itself. Dr. Janov's latest book, The Biology of Love, is, in large part, a discussion of the explosion of research on the life-long effects of early experience.
Tibet-related links at Phil Borges "Tibetan Portrait" website.
Tibet was invaded by the Red Chinese in 1949 and has been systematically destroyed ever since. Roughly 1.25 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese, many Tibetans have fled (most to neighboring India), and thousands of Tibetan children have been orphaned. The book Tibetan Portrait itself is a collection of moving photographs by Mr. Borges, combined with short but powerful commentary -- mostly on spiritual matters, and on compassion -- by the Dalai Lama.
A list of Gandhi quotes: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mohandas_gandhi.htmll
The Libertarian Party
Why? Because, once again, human rights are NECESSARY to love and compassion. I am more an abolitionist than a small-government libertarian, but the LP is a good educational tool and in any case small, restrained government is surely better than large, authoritarian government. An example of relevant material often posted at the LP site is Public School Pandemonium: My Experience as a Public School Teacher by Rachel Baxter (no longer at the LP site, but hosted at http://ablechild.org/newsarchive/public_school_pandemonium_2-1-01.htm).
Secession.net
No person is free who cannot leave. We cheered when Soviet satellite republics seceded from the Evil Empire, and rightly so. Every human being has the right to secede peacefully and seek his or her own path. This is incredibly obvious, yet nearly all governments treat the right of secession as a crime, either for "their" states and towns, or even for individuals. When any other group or person forcibly prevents someone from leaving, we (correctly) call them kidnappers or slaveholders.
Death Tolls for the Man-made Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century
An Alphabetical Index. More evidence that the human condition is desperately in need of improvement, and that coercive government is both a major symptom of the problem, and the most deadly tool used to inflict new damage.
Financial Reckoning Day by Bill Bonner with Addison Wiggins. Also Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis by the same authors. -- Why list these here? Because one of the worst ways that coercive government hurts people is economically. Also (and even worse), by coercively taking over the money supply and (ultimately) hugely inflating that money supply -- called "monetary policy" when they do it, but "counterfeiting" if you do it -- governments are able to finance wars and other atrocities which they would otherwise be much less able to get us involved in. Think I'm kidding about the mess we're in? See US Could Be Going Bankrupt at the London Telegraph (July 14, 2006), or http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/07/Kotlikoff.pdf for the original paper [PDF format] written for the Federal Reserve by economist Laurence Kotlikoff. Bloated, corrupt, ravenous government, not market forces, is doing all this -- and billions of people will be affected world-wide when the next depression hits.
Strike The Root
This Thoreau-inspired commentary site includes thought-provoking material every day. The site name is from a comment by Henry David Thoreau: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." I occasionally write for STR.
LewRockwell.com
Another commentary site: "anti-state, anti-war, pro-market." You probably won't agree with everything you read at this site or the one above but you WILL get information and viewpoints that you'll not find in the major media -- and a bracing dose of reality.
Libertarian Rock The non-aggression principle in action, at a website designed by those young people the oldsters are always complaining about.
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