go to the white house web sight..and on the search engine type in the word Marty.....read the fifth hit... Remarks at the Fifth Millennium Evening at the White House

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), November 11, 1999

Answers

http://www2.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/columns/hrc01 2799.html

TALKING IT OVER

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

January 27, 1999

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The very number 1999 is a vivid reminder that we are about to celebrate The Millennium. The celebration of thousand-year milestones, dating from the time of Christ and drawn from Scripture, may not be significant to other traditions and can be misunderstood even among Christians and those who use the western calendar.

The impending celebration has sparked a renewed interest in what was going on in Christendom in 1000 A.D., when Jerusalem was considered the center of the Christian world. On the maps of the time, Europe was shown as a large land mass with well-known contours. Asia and Africa were mysteriously incomplete, and the New World was nowhere to be found.

The majority of Europeans tilled the soil, while the church, trades and military service provided alternatives for others. Life expectancy was short, and most people did not live past 40. Girls, unless they were born to wealthy families or became nuns, were not educated.

The people of medieval Europe measured time by sundials and water clocks. No one marked birthdays. They traveled by foot, horse, cart or ship, and a pilgrimage to Jerusalem could take two years. Influenced by Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions, their culture was rich in proverbs, folk tales, legends, love songs, poems ... and stories from the Bible.

This year, as we count down to the year 2000, attention is focused on issues such as: When does it happen, and where will we celebrate? What is the Y2K "computer bug," and what will it mean for me?

But this week, at the fifth Millennium Evening at the White House -- a series of conversations with artists, scholars, scientists and creative individuals from many fields -- we were looking for the answers not to these questions but to more fundamental ones: What can we learn from the past? And how can we use what we learn to find meaning in the present and the future?

Historian Natalie Zemon Davis was our guide to medieval Europe, debunking "the false image of western Christians quaking in terror at the prospect of the year 1000." Rather, she explained, "there was no clear-cut apocalyptic movement led by a single prophet and focused on the single year 1000 but rather a millennial spirit spread over several decades. Preached by monks, it touched at one time or another bishops, nuns, warriors, wives, traders and peasants, inspiring moods that ranged from fear and repentance to initiative and joy."

The millennial period did witness optimistic and pessimistic movements -- devoted on the one hand to peace and on the other to the burning of heretics and the persecution of Jews. Professor Davis reminded us that "Our dream-making capacity, our capacity to imagine, can give birth to the good as well as the bad. ... The past urges us toward new commitment and also offers us a source of hope."

Hope -- or hope tempered by realism -- was the focus of the discussion as theologian Martin Marty brought us back to the present and challenged us to ponder the future. It was Christian philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr, he said, "who put the search for meaning into context:
"'Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.'"

Hope, faith, love and forgiveness. Professor Marty pointed out that these can carry us beyond a parochial concern about our own end and help us all "find meaning for the millennium, even if we cannot claim we have found the meaning of the millennium. My husband ended this very special evening by issuing a challenge to all Americans. He asked us to write down the three things that we are most worried about and the three things about which we are most hopeful. Then, he suggested we answer the question "What can I do about these things to create a more hopeful future?"

I hope that many of you will take up his challenge. Talk with your family, friends and colleagues, and when you've reached some conclusions, share them with the White House.

If Americans take time to participate in this simple exercise -- to commit to action on three areas of concern -- we will be well- provisioned for our journey into the future and on our way to preserving our values and our optimism for generations to come.

COPYRIGHT 1997 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

-- html student (lurker@work.not), November 11, 1999.

Does anyone have a link to the report released yesteray by the White House (Koskinen)? Thanks.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), November 11, 1999.

...this above link is not what I posted. The article I recommend you all read is 24 pages long and is extremely interesting as they discuss the pope and his motives, the haves and have nots, and much more......

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), November 11, 1999.

The Fith Millenium Evening at the White House

-- (not@now.com), November 11, 1999.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/html/19990127-1267.html

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), November 11, 1999.

Also from W.H. web site: Can't tell if this is for USA, Overseas or both but am wondering if the item "CIVILIAN SUPPLY PRE-IDENTIFICATION AND STOCKPILING" means to determine what the civilians NEED and stockpile it or could it mean determine what the civilians ***HAVE*** and stockpile it. Any guesses? Charli

13: Strategic Planning Document - National Security File size: 27K http://www.whitehouse.gov/search

Control crowds Access to real time data Regional food stockpiling Remotely installed sensors Portable detection systems Refugee movement monitoring Rapid, accurate mine detection Embargo compliance monitoring Near-real-time data transmission Force and support tracking systems Advance warning of humanitarian crisis Waste management during mass migrations Prediction of location and intensity of crisis Water supply protection during mass migrations ******* Civilian supply pre-identification and stockpiling ********* Lightweight, mobile information gathering systems Food and water delivery from remote points of origin Real-time, day/night, all weather intelligence gathering Information dissemination to forces and support systems Neutralization of combatants mixed with non-combatants Disruption or disabling of communications, transportation, and utilities Secure methods of food delivery (for both recipients and food deliverers) Water supply and purification kits for untrained or nonliterate individuals Waste treatment kits for use by untrained, non-literate individuals Effective mine removal equipment (land mines and unexploded ordnance) Destruction or disabling of conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction Portable water purification systems, central source or individual use (10,000 to 100,000 persons) Disabling or disruption of military logistics with minimum casualties Detection of nuclear, chemical and biological materials moving across borders, airports and seaports Location and identification of weapons of mass destruction systems and their sub-elements Epidemiological-chemical products and infrastructure equipment (10,000 to 100,000 persons)

*Not listed in order of importance.

-- Charli Claypool (claypool@belatlantic.net), November 12, 1999.

January 25, 1999

SNIPPED REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT, THE FIRST LADY,  PROFESSOR NATALIE DAVIS, AND PROFESSOR MARTIN MARTY AT FIFTH MILLENNIUM EVENING AT THE WHITE HOUSE

The East Room

PROFESSOR DAVIS:  History reminds us that, no matter how static the present looks, change can take place; things can be
different. History reminds us that, no matter how bleak and constrained a situation, human initiative is put into play in opposition, improvisation, and transformation. The end results are not always what was wanted, are sometimes quite unexpected, but they then inspire new effort. No matter what happens, people try to do something about it, and tell stories about it and bequeath them to the future. The past urges us toward new commitment and also offers us a source of hope.

PROFESSOR MARTY: The meaning of the millennium -- two of them are religious, two secular. Two are apocalyptic, as
Professor Davis has described apocalypse catastrophic events between the ages; two are progressive and gradual.

Religious apocalypticism, or catastrophism, usually appears in America in the forms we pointed to as pre-millennialist. Its advocates will include the most visible and fervent futurists among us, and they will complain to you, as the year goes on, that they are also the most derided by those who do not share their world view. Their pre-millennial docudramas portray a cosmic battle between God and the forces of evil, between Christ and Antichrist. They disagree among themselves on many finer points, especially about the timing of events.

Secular apocalypticism appears in extreme doom-filled versions of the end, begin with prophecies best known about the potential computer foul-up Y2K -- you all know its other nickname is the millennial bug in 2000. Among the urgent efforts to prevent nuclear or other forms of military or terrorist mass destruction, or to prevent ecological disasters that await an uncaring globe, some reach for extremes of apocalyptic despair which diverts others from seeking those peaceful life-supporting, hope-filled alternatives for our globe.

The third cluster -- religion without apocalypse, but millennium or future -- displays believers who foresee futures and ends without literal versions of inevitable catastrophe. They make up the majority of the best represented faiths in America. These faiths include the prophetic three -- you could here anticipations here of Islam, in Judaism, in America with the vast majority of Christians.

Tomorrow the President will be visiting the Pope, who is in this hemisphere celebrating, thinking about
millennium, referring to it in every speech. As for the ordinary faithful, each week around the world a
billion Christians, Catholic and others, recite creeds that end with faith that Jesus will come again in
glory to judge the quick and the dead.

And, finally, there's secular non-catastrophic, non- apocalyptic millennialist and futurist thinking. It concentrates on notions of stewardship of the Earth. Its adherents also number their days. Many of them will heed themes like those of the Nobel Prize-winning poet Czeslaw Milosz, who wisely told Europeans that the failure of Marx's vision has created the need for another vision, not for rejection of all visions. Or those of our Martin Luther King, Jr., who projected dreams and visions for this troubled and divided nation.

No single version of these meanings of the millennial I've said will prevail, but the energies put into the best of them can counter the cynicism that may be a greater danger than catastrophism; that can challenge the apathy that's more unnerving than prophecy. Beyond today's culture wars, polarizing, identity politics, demonization of the other and self-centered searches, there are new reasons to address the dreams and hope of deliciously diverse elements of humanity. There will be new impulses for
Americans to seek some common stories, more common ground, much common sense.

For civic purposes, whether citizens are literalists or not, religious our not, matters less than whether they make good use of these seasons of attention to the end and new beginnings. Instead of ending in pessimism or optimism, they might search for meaning with what I call realistic hope. Hope does not let itself be utterly restrained by realistic assessments. Death camp psychiatrist Victor Frankel noticed and announced that some concentration camp victims, even on the day they knew realistically to be their end, shared their last bread and fresh hope. Thus they proved, he said, that "the last of all freedoms, the one no one can take away, is the one that lets you choose your attitude in any circumstances."

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I would like to take about the last four sentences of Professor Marty's talk and emblazon it in the consciousness of every human being on the face of the Earth.

PROFESSOR CRUZ: ... most people in this culture do not understand that the foundations of this culture really are imbedded in the Christian, the Judaic and in the Islamic world of 500 years and more ago.

I think they don't understand -- and those of us who teach, work at enhancing that understanding -- the extent to which our institutions, the universities, the colleges, public libraries, parliaments, laws, the jury system; our scientific achievements in optics, in mathematics; our economic institutions in banking; our culture; our literature, Chaucer and Dante -- one of my favorites, Christine dePezone, (phonetic) who was the first woman to earn a living from writing alone in the French court in 1400 -- all of these achievements in many other areas -- and I've listed some of them -- I forgot mechanical clocks, which I
shouldn't have forgotten, since we've got mechanical clock manuscripts out there -- mechanical clocks and compasses, et cetera.

FATHER TRACY: President and Mrs. Clinton, Professors Davis and Marty. I was so taken by the talks this evening and the event itself that it did make me think of what I find striking in the Catholic instance about the Pope's request and pleas with his fellow Catholics for the millennium. It might be worth noting that these two years before the millennium we have been requested to do repentance -- both personal repentance; but also, which is most unusual in history, I think, corporate repentance of
the Catholic Church in relationship to other Christian churches and especially, of course, to the Jewish people throughout the centuries.

It seems to me an entirely fitting idea that he has tried to proclaim almost a universal Yom Kippur or Day of Repentance, for not just all of us as individuals, but as corporate bodies -- as President Clinton helped us to reflect some years ago on slavery, or this evening on Wounded Knee and other such things for our corporate body.

The second thing he did that I think is both significant and interesting is he returned to our Jewish roots and spoke of the need next year, after the two years preparation of repentance, for forgiveness -- again both individual and corporate -- and tried to incorporate the ancient Jewish tradition in the Hebrew Bible -- for Christians, the Old Testament -- of the Year of Jubilee -- so that on Christmas Eve when the Door of Jubilee is opened at St. Peter's, which it is only every 50 years and this would be the Great Jubilee year -- there will be a call for jubilee and forgiveness of others, as well as asking the nations in his latest talk that the rich nations, as in ancient Israel, rich people might find ways to forgive some of the debts of the poor nations.

PROFESSOR MARTY: Hope has dirty hands. Dorothy Day's great motto was from Dostoyevsky -- love -- ethereal love -- love in action is a harsh and dreadful love. And she organized so many movements and worked so closely with the poor out of that theme; that's what love should look like.

And the kind of hope we're talking about tonight I think is not -- I loved your word, ethereal, because you can often do that and it often has been used that way -- pie in the sky, by and by, just let things bad go on because it will get better later. But, again, I'm going to refer to African Americans as an example. Some years ago Eugene Genovese, one of our historians was, as a Marxist, was going to write a book on how ethereal hope kept blacks from ever having revolt, revolution, rebellion. As a Marxist he thought, they're peasants, why don't they revolt? Proletariates, why don't they revolt? And they didn't.

He tells in the beginning of this book he wrote, "Roll Jordan, Roll," that in the act of writing it he found they could not possibly have -- there are 12 slaves on one plantation, there are 20 on the next and there are 200 dogs between and swamps and there's no way, you couldn't have had a movement. And then he goes on, so what did they do?

And his book is an interesting testimonial to the way in which, in the worst of circumstances, they imparted hope and dignity and produced great things. And that's, I think, why you couldn't move them. Is it Frederick Douglas or Daniel Walker when they said, there's a wonderful thing called the American Colonization Society -- we etherealists would have a nice country if you'd just go back to Africa; we'll raise the money, you go to Africa. He said, no, why should we go? We watered this soil with our tears, we manured it with our blood. It's our place.

And I think that in the midst of that, I don't know any people in American life -- expect maybe the Native Americans on reservation -- who, as a people, had to endure so much along the way. And, yet, you hear the songs, their hope. They can't be ethereal, they had to be grounded.

You know better than I that all the spirituals have a double sound to them. One is that far off Sweet Chariot, and the other is Underground Railroad coming by. And I think that that's the way -- if we're going to change the city of today I think it would have to be in those terms.

I'm going to take one more a little quickly on this. Some years ago at the American Historical Association somebody read a paper on the Presbyterian clergy in the Carolinas in the 1830s, and portrayed them as good people, moral people, good family people, good preachers, good believers, good teachers, good everything. And meanwhile, every one of them was a strong defender of slavery.

And in the hotel room, the way historians do late at night over a beer, somebody said to the 10 or 12, what do you suppose 100 years from now they're going to say about us? We ought to write on a piece of paper, everyone had some version of we have learned to live with a permanent underclass and don't have the imagination or the resources to face it -- which is what the two excuses were back then. And so we justify that we can't do anything. So imagination and resources for it, but if you don't have hope you aren't going to act at all.

PROFESSOR DAVIS: Just to add a note, the historical record is full of terrible massacre, terrible exiles, economic systems full of dreadful toil, despairing situations with enormous numbers of people very poor, barely surviving, losing their children early in life. And any resistance movement, any oppositional movement has had to be sparked over time with some kind of hope. I would only add that -- and must be -- the totally despairing, don't get the act together and start moving -- the only thing that
one can hope for in this is a dialogue going on between hope and realism. And that's the thing I think we have to look for. Just as we spoke before about a dialogue between humility and ambition, a dialogue constantly going on so that one doesn't just dominate over the other. That's where I think we should go.

End Snips.

Sincerely,
Stan Faryna

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-- Stan Faryna (faryna@groupmail.com), November 12, 1999.