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Betsy Mulligan-Dague, president of the Jeanette Rankin Peace Center, gave a short address to the attendees of the Festival of Peace in Arlee on September 6, 2009. I’ve admired Missoula’s Peace Center for numerous reasons. It has a huge presence in a small town in Montana. It runs a fair trade center in the “hip strip” across the Clark Fork from downtown. It hosts many events, from music to movies to various gatherings. It supports stands that might not be popular. And perhaps most of all, because of the person they honor with their name. Jeanette Rankin was the first female member of congress, right from Missoula. She voted against our entry into both World Wars. In fact, she was the only member of congress to vote against our entry into WWII. If we’d listened to her for WWI, most historians agree that WWII likely would not have been necessary. Betsy gives a strong speech in this video to the gathering in the beautiful Tibetan Buddhist Ewam center in Arlee for each of us to think of what we can do right where we to promote peace in the world. It might just even be practicing your own spiritual tradition more earnestly.

I’ve put off publishing this a while, but a friend reminded me of the value of Seth Godin’s book, Tribes, and I have to put out the word. Jeanette Russel, of Democracy in Action, interviewed me after a talk I gave to the NTen Club in Missoula earlier this year, and which she posted to YouTube. It was about adoption curves and the need to lead and develop tribes – communities of interest – around the mission of their non-profits. But being aware of this need to grow a tribe and the need to be a leader is valid for all endeavors and the landscape has changed dramatically making this need even more critical today.