Civilization is Possible

by Blase Bonpane

Fifty years from now, historians will be identifying the criminality of the George W. Bush Administration. As these academics document their task they will be dependent on authors who were \u0022in his face\u0022 at the time of these international crimes. Blase Bonpane believes that silence is complicity. Civilization is Possible identifies the crimes at the very time they were being committed. Aside from the weekly commentaries of Blase Bonpane, this volume also includes his personal interviews with like minded observers of the disastrous Bush Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Robert Fisk, Greg Palast and Peter Laufer. These are voices crying in the wilderness of rampant militarism, torture and collateral damage (murder). This toxic mix was nurtured by literally hundreds of lies coming from a failed administration that blatantly abused the sacred trust of our citizens.
These commentaries would have never been permitted by the rigid corporate media censorship which marks the Iraq War years. This exercise of free speech in Civilization is Possible was only made possible by \u0022fiercely independent\u0022 KPFK radio Los Angeles (listener supported and \u0022powered by the people\u0022) for the Pacifica Network.
Civilization is Possible completes a trilogy of Blase Bonpane's books published by Red Hen Press. His previous books Guerrillas of Peace ; Pacifica Radio Commentaries and Peace Reports from the Office of the Americas , second printing, 2002, and Common Sense for the Twenty-First Century , 2004, which in addition to his radio commentaries includes interviews with the Reverend James Lawson, Jonathan Schell and Chalmers Johnson.
By selecting The Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the preface to Civilization is Possible , Blase Bonpane gives a hint about how his title might become a reality.

392 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

Blase Bonpane is Director of the Office of the Americas (based in Los Angeles, California) which he co-founded with his wife Theresa in 1983. His attention has been primarily on human rights and identification of illegal and immoral aspects of domestic and foreign policies of the United States.

Bonpane served as a Maryknoll priest in Guatemala and was assigned by the Cardinal of Central America as National Advisor to Centro Capacitacion Social, a center for university and high school students working in the field with indigenous people on matters of health, literacy and labor organization. He was expelled from that country in 1967 in the midst of a revolution. (Washington Post, February 4, 1968, "A Priest in Guatemala.")

He played a significant role in the historic dialogue in Latin America between Christianity and Marxism. (Guatemala: Occupied Country, Eduardo Galeano, Monthly Review Press, 1969) Blase Bonpane led investigative delegations to Nicaragua, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica and Peru. He traveled through the conflictive zones of Chiapas, Mexico together with Bishop Samuel Ruiz on a series of peace missions and served on the board of SICSAL, a hemispheric ecumenical secretariat based in Mexico City. He also participated in peace missions to El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador and Iraq. (See the Blase Bonpane Collection, Department of Special Collections, UCLA Research Library; Collection 1590).

The third edition of Bonpane's book, "Guerrillas of Peace; Liberation Theology and the Central American Revolution", originally published by South End Press, was published by toExcel in 2000. A peace trilogy of his books has been published by Red Hen Press,Guerrillas of Peace on the Air, Second Printing 2002, "Common Sense for the 21st Century', Second Printing, 2010, and "Civilization is Possible", 2008. Under the auspices of the Oral History Program at UCLA Blase Bonpane completed the book "The Central American Solidarity Movement",Copyright 2005, by The Regents of the University of California.

Blase Bonpane's autobiography, "Imagine No Religion", published by Red Hen Press, is currently available on Amazon in both hardcover and e-book form.

Bonpane received his PhD in Social Science from University of California Irvine in 1984. He has served on the faculties of the University of California Los Angeles, California State University Northridge, and California State University Los Angeles.

He hosts the radio program "World Focus" on Pacifica Radio station KPFK in Los Angeles at 10:00 am each Sunday (90.7 FM) as well as internationally from the KPFK site.

Blase Bonpane was a leader of the International March for Peace in Central America, December 10, 1985-January 27, 1986. This venture from Panama to Mexico included some 30 nations and 400 participants.