Reports and Books 2005

The productivity included the Midterm Report on Culture of Peace in 2005, the Youth Report on Culture of Peace in 2006, the End of Decade Report in 2010, and the trilogy of books that I published in 2009. Much of the work was carried out with teams of young people, such as the team that presented the Youth Report at the United Nations in 2006 (see photo below).

Youth Advocacy Team-2 at the UN in 2006

For years I had promised on my personal website to write a world history of the war/peace dialectic. Writing from August 2007, I had completed a full draft of a book by February 2008 which had come to have a new title, "The State is War: Make Peace without It". And over the course of the following year it was transformed into a trilogy of books which I proceeded to publish. As described on the page I have called trilogy, the response was disappointing and frustrating.

For years I had managed to love both Kiki and Lindsay by keeping it secret from Lindsay. Kiki shared my travels and the work I did on the UN reports, as well as the writing of my books. Meanwhile, my good life with Lindsay at Short Beach continued and I kept the two lives separate. The tension grew and grew, and finally I resolved to tell Lindsay about Kiki. At the beginning of 2009, after a very nice vacation in Maui with Lindsay and a trip with Kiki to the World Social Forum in Brazil, I told Lindsay about Kiki, and this led to a painful process leading to divorce. I went into one of my periodic breakdowns, this time, genital herpes.

Meanwhile, I continued to share Brazil with Kiki, and then her new home in Normandy.

Despite the difficulties in 2009, I continued my speaking engagements and missions for the culture of peace, and this time I got a recording of the talk at University of Connecticut to put on the Internet. Other talks included the World Peace Congress in Santos, Brazil (see photo below), the International Affairs talk at Keene State University in New Hampshire, and the Cities and Peace seminar at Sant Boi de Llobregat near Barcelona in Catalunya, Spain.

Speaking at a forum in Santos, Brazil, in 2009

In earlier years I had help from Federico Mayor for my travels, for the world reports from the civil society and youth movements and for the cities initiative in Spain But by 2009, Mayor was bankrupt and did not help with the compilation of the 2010 civil society world report. However, through his assistant Manuel Manonelles, he helped us get the report distributed to the UN General Assembly for its debate at the end of the Decade.

When I was in Santos, I met a young Brazilian Marcos Estrada who had come from another city on his motorbike to take part in the Peace Congress. He later came to Barcelona in September and along with Cecile Barbeito of the Escole Cultura de Pau in Barcelona and Meg Villanueva of the Philippines who was working for an NGO in Barcelona, they offered to take charge of the end-of-decade report on the culture of peace, even though there was no money for it from Mayor. I call them the "third generation" culture of peace activists, and they make me optimistic for the future!

Having turned 70, I was starting to think about the continuation of my work for the culture of peace after my death. I put my archives in order and set up a corporation to manage my websites and books.

With the publication of my books in 2008, I began to think of myself as a prophet. It goes back to my childhood, reading the bible with my mother and being especially impressed with the wisdom of Solomon and the prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah. My books prophesy the crash of the American empire, the emptying of the cities of the world with the most massive migration of all human history into the countryside seeking food, and the possibility of by-passing the state to create a United Nations based on cities and leading towards a culture of peace. Lindsay was completely sarcastic about this idea. Margarita laughed at it. Kiki took it more seriously but was not happy about it. With other people, I did not discuss it.

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Final stanza of pagepoem "The Prophet"
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