Tag: Peace

Comfortably Numb



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How else can you explain it?

Massacres, disasters, high crimes, betrayals, faked pandemics, the disintegration of decency, the destruction of dignity, the religion of the root of all evil and the genocide of the poor by the rich.

Flashes of outrage replaced by short-term memory fail. Moments of insight chasing the rabbit down the memory hole.

They say in time “everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light.”

But I say what more do you need? The truth isn’t “out there” it’s right in front of your face. Staring at you and daring you to do something about it.

It’s not the truth which sets you free, but what you do about it which frees you.

 

Coming Out as Religious, and Other Stories

I’d rather not entertain current events for a while, and instead tell you a bit more about the Quaker Young Adult gathering I recently attended.  Primarily this is because it is supremely depressing to contemplate the oil spill.  The beaches on Alabama’s Gulf Coast that I visited every summer as a child and young teen might be forever changed as wave after wave of oil washes ashore.  I may return to that at another time, but right now I am avoiding even thinking about it because it hits so close to home.  Returning to my original point, there are so many stories to share I hardly know where to begin, but I’ll start with one and go from there.

Must see TV tonight – MLK Jr. & Obama!

Tavis Smiley has produced a special report comparing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama, focusing on their attitudes to war, empire and the consequences for society and the world.  

Smiley speaks out against what Cornell West has called “The Santa-Claus-ization” of King.  In typical goody-two-shoes, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” fashion, the mainstream has chosen to concentrate on what it considers the good, positive King, not the one who criticized U.S. foreign policy and called the United States the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”  

That was true when King said it in the sixties, one year before he was assassinated; and, sadly, it remains true today.  

The show airs on PBS tonight (8 PM Pacific, check your local time).  I’ve e-mailed the link out to my list, hoping some will hear, perhaps for the first time, King’s views on war and his contrast to Obama.

Read the Black Agenda Repost article on the program:

King and Obama.

Let’s take a look at those civilian deaths

It’s GreenChange Blog Action Day and the theme is “war and peace.”  Part of the reason I oppose the war in Afghanistan – and almost every war, for that matter – is the inherent risk to civilians.  Whatever goal we’re fighting for there (getting bin Laden?  getting the Taliban?  getting al Qaeda?  protecting women?  I’m not really sure), it’s not worth the huge civilian death toll.  

Not only is it completely disgusting and tragic that these people are dying, but it only works to create more enemies.  Having a family member or friend killed or having your house blown to smithereens could definitely create an insurgent out of you.

So I’m just going to examine some recent news about civilian deaths, if for no other reason than to get around that terrible media bias of focusing almost exclusively on American deaths.

Thoughts on the anti-war movement as of March 2010

This post was written as part of GreenChange blog action day. Learn more here.

The anti-war movement seems to be at a crossroads these days. The rapid contraction of anti-war activism after George W. Bush left office caused many skeptics, including activists themselves, to wonder if most of the protesters had been more anti-Bush than anti-war. However, there are signs that the ranks of Americans who are determined to protest the evils of war, no matter which party controls the White House, is growing.

A December rally in Washington DC against the escalation of the Afghanistan War, which featured an impressive lineup of speakers including Chris Hedges, Cynthia McKinney, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Ralph Nader, nevertheless attracted only a small number of supporters – probably less than 1000. The recent March 20th anti-war march in Washington DC attracted between 2500 and 10000 supporters. That’s still a far cry from the hundreds of thousands who would march during the Bush regime, but it may be a sign that the movement is recovering from its post-election inaction.

I remember hearing from people familiar with United For Peace & Justice (UFPJ), a nationwide umbrella group for anti-war organizations, that UFPJ leaders opted not to put their organizing muscle behind the March 20 protest. I’m out of the country and out of the loop, so I can’t confirm if that’s true. If it is true, I think it’s a big mistake for a self-described anti-war organization to downplay an anti-war protest. If anti-war group leaders view President Obama as more receptive to their message, that’s all the more reason for them to put pressure on him to do the right thing.

Ross Levin has a great post on how the 3/20 anti-war march in DC, which he attended and reported from, got significantly less media coverage than a significantly smaller Tea Party rally against healthcare reform across town.

It’s an open secret that the “grassroots” Tea Party movement is actually an astroturf operation, promoted by establishment media pundits like Rick Sanchez and Glenn Beck and funded by establishment political operatives like Dick Armey. Yet the mainstream media coverage treats the Tea Party protests like a genuine grassroots conservative uprising. My question is: can anti-war organizers convert this state of affairs into greater publicity for their movement?

Just the fact that anti-war rallies attract more people than tea parties won’t get them more coverage, but maybe if anti-war organizers made the “we’re bigger than the tea party” challenge integral to their actions, and communicated it to both the mainstream and independent media (as well as creating their own media), it would get more press and attract more attention from the general public.

Another idea (just throwing it out there): an “An-TEA-War PARTY protest”, in which anti-war protesters would mimic tea partiers by standing on the Capitol steps and screaming anti-war slogans at passing members of Congress. By holding signs saying “An-TEA-War PARTY”, these protesters could attract the Tea-Party-loving press.

Another idea: antiwar protesters could have simply marched past the tea party protest, in an attempt to highlight the media’s bias in giving greater coverage to a smaller protest. Intrepid protesters could even join the Tea Partiers and wave their anti-war signs for the cameras. Such tactics would probably require nonviolence training, since some tea partiers could get physical and it would not be good if the anti-war protesters retaliated.

One more demonstration idea: I’ve often thought it would be interesting if someone organized a march in the style of a 1930s labor rally. Everyone would wear suits or dresses, and carry black-and-white signs and banners with simple lettering and straightforward messages. To my mind, a protest like that could attract media attention and get people talking.

In case I’ve offended anyone who thinks the tea parties are cool, there is an encouraging initiative from Voters For Peace to broaden the anti-war movement to include folks who don’t usually show up for anti-war events. Here’s Sam Smith’s take on the effort:

“Last Saturday I spent eight hours with three dozen other people in a basement conference room of a Washington hotel engaged in an extraordinary exercise of mind and hope.

The topic was, by itself, depressingly familiar: building an anti-war coalition. What made it so strikingly different was the nature of those at the table. They included progressives, conservatives, traditional liberals and libertarians. Some reached back to the Reagan years or to 1960s activism, some – including an SDS leader from the University of Maryland and several Young Americans for Liberty – were still in college.”

I’ve read the foreign policy chapter of Ron Paul’s book, and I felt that he was right on the money about many things, like ending US wars in the Middle East, closing US military bases in other countries, and cutting off military aid to foreign governments like Israel and Egypt. In the same coalition-building vein, we can only benefit by more often invoking the anti-militarism words of people who conservatives revere, like Dwight Eisenhower and George Washington. I’ll add some choice quotations below.

Another great thing about Voters For Peace is that it’s involved in both grassroots activism and legislative pressure campaigns. To be effective, the anti-war movement must get serious about pressuring politicians. Pressuring politicians requires setting specific goals that they can be held accountable to. For the anti-war movement, that means war funding, since Congress can end the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan only by refusing to fund them.

The most effective pressure tactic would be organizing a nationwide voter pledge not to vote for any politician who votes for war funding. If you want a politician to pay attention, tell them they won’t get your vote if they don’t meet your conditions. The Democratic majority has voted solidly to continue the wars, but make them feel that their majority is at risk if they fail to end the wars, and that’s how you get real action.

In many districts, instead of voting for a pro-war incumbent in the general election, you can vote for a Green, anti-war Libertarian, or other independent. The anti-war movement needs to show politicians that only anti-war candidates will earn our votes from now on.

What are your thoughts?

QUOTATION TIME!

“Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice? ”

-George Washington

“He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death. ”

-Thomas Paine

“Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.”

-Thomas Jefferson

“Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. ”

-James Madison

“Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure. ”

-Abraham Lincoln

“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend… Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”

-Abraham Lincoln

” In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. ”

-Dwight Eisenhower

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. ”

-Dwight Eisenhower

Saturday is the day to take action against the wars

If you want to help end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, challenge the military industrial complex, fight for jobs not wars, or anything along those lines, SATURDAY IS YOUR DAY OF ACTION!  There will be a massive peace march in DC – some say they are expecting hundreds of thousands to show up – and events all over the nation.  On Sunday there will also be an event in Seattle, for those of you near there.

Please join me in DC – if you’re looking for me, I’ll be with the “We Are Not Your Soldiers” contingent (carrying a peace flag and with my brother, who will be videotaping) and for part of the day I’ll be marching with former US Senator and presidential candidate Mike Gravel.

Biden: “This is starting to get dangerous for us”

(background: VP Biden visited Israel, Israel announces they’re building 1600 new apartments in occupied territory near Jerusalem.)

Read this and think:

H/T to Spencer Ackerman at Lake of the Fire Dogs, who pulled up the link friday:

Rozen:

http://www.politico.com/news/s…

“People who heard what Biden said [to Israeli officials behind closed doors] were stunned,” the centrist Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported. “‘This is starting to get dangerous for us,’ Biden castigated his interlocutors. ‘What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us, and it endangers regional peace.'”

“In language that could only have been finalized shortly before he delivered the speech, Biden reiterated that it was Israel’s perceived breach of trust that had been so galling – at a time, with the fragile proximity talks just getting under way, when trust was at a premium,” Jerusalem Post editorialist David Horovitz wrote Thursday.

Ackerman:

http://attackerman.firedoglake…

Today Secretary Clinton got in the act. Netanyahu is an obstructionist and it’s good to see the Obama administration remind Israelis that its interests are not abstract things. The truth is it’s not “starting” to get dangerous for us.

My friend Daniel Levy has forgotten more about Israeli politics than I’ll know and he writes that Netanyahu may be the last best hope for the two-state solution. For the life of me I just don’t understand the logic. As best as I can understand, Daniel believes Netanyahu’s obstructionism, combined with statebuilding efforts from Salam Fayyad in the West bank, will strengthen international support for… what? Imposing a solution on Israel?

Catch the commenter #8 on March 14th 2010 at 11:09 am, at FDL


Roll out the sternly worded speeches.

Did Biden really say the U.S. troops are fighting in Pakistan? And there weren’t headlines on that?

“undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Aye yup.  When one pits one Muslim country after another, against another non Muslim country, one who is already small in size but mighty in power, with a history of justified paranoia because of World War II,  it can get dangerous for the perpetrator.   But who ever thought it would be ….  us ?

Think, Joe.  Are not we better than this ?

It gets dangerous for everybody.

OTW: UPDATED Bienvenidos a Miami Part 2

now also up at Wild Wild Left

QUICK UPDATE: Friday noonish: Just an alert to let y’all know Tess made it by with a comment, see comments! 🙂

Last week, I left you hanging with OTW: Bienvenidos a Miami Part 1. In that Essay, I told you a little bit about my growing up in Miami, Florida, alongside the initial wave of Cuban refugees in the early 1960’s. I also promised you I was going somewhere with this. Yes, I do have a Point. 😛 I will make good on that promise near the end below. And finally, I left you with a cliffhanger with my mention of my Cuban friend, Maria {not her real name}. Well, guess what? I have a surprise for you!

Let’s pick up with a little snapshot phone convo between me and Maria, shortly after college.

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She picks up on the third ring and I immediately lay into her. “Where the hell are you? It’s one o’clock already! Ive been ready for an hour! We’re gonna be late!!”

Maria is ever so casual. “Calmate, we have plenty of time. I’ll be there to pick you up around 2, like I told you. Man! Calm down.”

“But… the invitation says the wedding starts at 2, and it’s a 45 minute drive, at least, up to Hollywood. We are sooooo late. This is so bad.”  I’m whining and pleading now.

Maria assures me and tries to explain. “Bueno, she’s Cuban, remember? Are you kidding me? We would look so stupid if we actually had the nerve to arrive at 2PM. They’d lookit us like we’re crazy.”

“No, no, no, but Maria… he is Jewish! This is just so not done. You don’t get it.”

No, you don’t get it, the bride’s family is Jewban. The groom doesn’t count when it comes to a wedding anyway, ferchrissake. Hang up the phone and go fix your lipstick or something. Ill be there in a bit. Jewbans are on Cuban time, reglas cubanas. lolol

Okay, as culture clashes go,  this one is certainly tame and a little funny, but it did happen, and yes, we were terribly late by the wall clock, with me fretting all the way of course, but it all turned out just fine. Maria was right. lol We arrived just as the ceremony started, at about 4PM, which was just right by the culture clock.

Toasters For Congress: A Video Contest

originally posted by Mitch Malasky at Sum of Change

Did you know that about 10 years ago, Ira Shorr of the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) sent a toaster to every member of congress to warm them about the danger of having nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alerts- “In the time that it takes to make toast, we could all be toast”. Mr Shorr has been PSR’s National Field Director for the last 25 years but is retiring this year. To celebrate his decades of activism for peace, our good friend David Hart (also the director of Grow the Hope) is holding a video contest for people to take their own stand on essential issues of our time, such as nuclear weapons and climate change. You can get all the info about the contest by going to www.PSR.org/video

Af/Pak: Education and Peace

Bill Moyers Journal: Education and Peace in Central Asia

January 15, 2010

Author and humanitarian Greg Mortenson, whose best-selling books Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools argue that education is the best way to peace in Afghanistan and across the Islamic world.

BILL MOYERS: Beyond his domestic woes, certainly the issue that has preoccupied President Obama the most since he took office is Afghanistan. The war he inherited from George W. Bush is now its ninth year and seems no closer to resolution. Almost daily, it seems, there are more stories of fighting in far off mountains, of suicide bombers killing CIA operatives, of drones raining bombs down on villages and killing innocent people. THE NEW YORK TIMES reports this week that unlike the past, when Afghanistan’s brutal winters would slow the violence for awhile, “both sides seem determined to make a larger political point by continuing to fight through the snow season.”

Hard sometimes to remember that this whole thing began in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and his accomplices in the attacks of 9/11….>>>>>

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Speaking truth to power

By Kathy Kelly

January 8, 2010


There’s a phrase originating with the peace activism of the American Quaker movement: “Speak Truth to Power.” One can hardly speak more directly to power than addressing the Presidential Administration of the United States. This past October, students at Islamabad’s Islamic International University had a message for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. One student summed up many of her colleagues’ frustration. “We don’t need America,” she said. “Things were better before they came here.”

The students were mourning loss of life at their University where, a week earlier, two suicide bombers walked onto the campus wearing explosive devices and left seven students dead and dozens of others seriously injured. Since the spring of 2009, under pressure from U.S. leaders to “do more” to dislodge militant Taliban groups, the Pakistani government has been waging military offensives throughout the northwest of the country. These bombing attacks have displaced millions and the Pakistani government has apparently given open permission for similar attacks by unmanned U.S. aerial drones.

Every week, Pakistani militant groups have launched a new retaliatory atrocity in Pakistan, killing hundreds more civilians in markets, schools, government buildings, mosques and sports facilities. Who can blame the student who believed that her family and friends were better off before the U.S. began insisting that Pakistan cooperate with U.S. military goals in the region?

Some good ways to start ‘The Year of Resistance’

I have recently been calling for a large social movement (or, more realistically, an expansion of the social movements for justice already in existence) and here are a few ways we can all get started on being part of this movement.

(Included:  Cindy Sheehan’s thoughts on recent events and a list of upcoming action events you can get involved with.)

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