Tag: Peace

I have watched the violence and the revolt in Egypt with a heavy heart.  On one hand, I am overjoyed to see a people long held in shackles struggling to attain freedom.  I hope this sentiment will someday encircle the world, so that, as it is written, the wolf and the lamb will live together.   As a pacifist, however, it causes me much distress to see police out in the street, blazes set alight, and the familiar signs of overheated passion.  In observing everything from a distance of thousands of miles, I am forced to confront my own beliefs.  It may be that physical force alone can bring needed reform and change.  But, as others far wiser than I have noted, war and warlike impulses are easy, but peaceful solutions are difficult.

In the past few weeks a series of reforms have been passed which some are saying justify President Obama’s, the Democratic Party’s, and American liberals’ extreme moderation and corporatism (or, in some cases, a mere subservience to, if not an outright embrace of, this horribly corrupt form of capitalism).

However, I would advise you to consider these words which Malcolm X uttered in another terribly corrupt and unequal world which, as the US continues its decline as an empire and omnipotent economic presence, even many liberals and radicals are starting to get nostalgic for:

You don’t stick a knife into a man’s back nine inches, pull it out six inches, and call it progress.

That is, if you ignore the context in which these mild reforms are taking place, you are ignoring the fundamental problems which need to be solved.  This is particularly apparent in the case of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  

Back on Tuesday, December 26, 2006 I posted this VVAW Anniversary-Dec 26th 1971-Statue of Liberty, Liberation on my first blog, still in my infancy of blog posting but I had gotten better, like embedding links etc.. This action took place only months after I returned from Vietnam, my last year of my four, and getting discharged back into civilian life. I wasn’t with these brothers but I had already started down the path of activism against Wars of Choice and those that create them for profit and power. That post is below slightly refined and updated, had to find a link and embedded a document pdf player.

Over the past couple of months I have also moved my **IN HONOR TO THE FALLEN in Iraq and Afghanistan** posts from that original site to a stand alone site, this is a page listing each post on that site.

Voices for Creative Nonviolence representatives in Kabul are privileged to be meeting with representatives of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, (AYPV), a group of teenagers based in Bamiyan, Afghanistan who campaign to promote nonviolence.  As the Obama administration releases its December Review of U.S. war in Afghanistan, the AYPV, along with Afghans for Peace, have issued a review of their experiences.  To express support for their letter, follow this link. — Kathy Kelly.

We Want You Out

An open letter from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Afghans for Peace

To all the leaders of our world, the leaders of the US-led coalition, the Afghan government, the ‘Taliban/Al-Qaeda’ and regional countries,

We are intolerably angry.

All our senses are hurting.

Our women, our men and yes shame on you, our children are grieving.

Your Afghan civilian-military strategy is a murderous stench we smell, see, hear and breathe.

President Obama, and all the elite players and people of the world, why?

Robert Freeman  . . .

For the past 30 years, the rich have been waging war on the middle class. It’s been astonishingly effective, partly because it has been undeclared. But even that pretense is now being abandoned.  The President’s National Debt Commission has effectively declared that the rich will now go after what is left of working and middle class wealth and will take whatever steps are necessary to seize it.  If allowed, their plan will reduce Americans to a state of serfdom.

That’s the agenda of the bankers, it’s the agenda of the courts, it’s the agenda of the corporate media and the politicians in D.C.  

Machiavelli was an idealistic proponent of political virtue and a paragon of integrity compared to the moral debris in two-party suits who “govern” America.  He wouldn’t last 30 seconds inside the Beltway, that crowd of thugs would fold, spindle, mutilate and deep-six him so fast he’d be inhaling mud at the bottom of the Potomac before he even knew what hit him.

That’s what we’ve been up against, a political system of ruthless efficiency masquerading as a partisan circus of flip-flopping acrobats, tax-and-spend trapeze artists, high-wire tightrope-walkers from swing districts, lions and tigers and bears growling about gridlock, and plenty of elephants trumpeting all over the place.  In the opinion of eager ticket buyers like Tweety, it’s the greatest show on earth.

But the politicians seem to be growing weary of the charade . . .    

The Commission’s proposal is the most naked, undisguised declaration of class warfare possible.  It’s agenda is not to reduce the deficit, but rather to reduce what is left of the American middle class and American workers to a condition of servitude, of feudal peerage.  This will make possible the final looting of America by those whose sociopathic greed has brought it so low already.  The battle over this proposal is the last bulwark against the devastation and final destruction of America.

Justice and equality are being taken away everywhere, by politicians and generals, by dictators and ayatollahs, by lawless regimes from Burma to Moscow, from Tehran to Tel Aviv, from Pakistan to America and everywhere in between.  Oppression takes many forms, “leaders” trot out different justifications, they may even believe some of them, but that does not erase their guilt, it does not absolve them of their crimes, it will not wash away the blood on their hands.  

cross-posted from Sum of Change

Professor Marc Gopin is the Director at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) with the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. You can follow his work by visiting www.MarcGopin.com. He has focused a lot of his work around interfaith conflict resolution, which is why we asked to speak with him about the controversy over the proposed construction of the Cordoba Mosque in lower Manhattan. Right after we scheduled the interview, news broke that peace talks among Israel, Palestine, and the United States would resume in September. This is an issue that Professor Gopin has been deeply involved with for a very long time now, so we included that in our line of questioning.

Highlight clips with partial transcripts and the full 40-minute interview below the fold…

Remember this guy ?    

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent, …..  captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

Fresh off of letting the former Minerals Management Services oil bomb a third of our nation’s seafood supply from the Gulf of Mexico into oblivion through regulatory neglect, and letting the EPA perform the world’s largest biology experiment with Corexit spraying,

He’s come up with a great new manufacturing stimulus program to end our nation’s economic malaise of millions of unemployed.

And Dept of Defense Secretary Gates is enthusiastic, saying it will “build high walls around a smaller yard” by narrowing in on the nation’s “crown jewels.”

What could this be ?   Is it a bird, is it a plane, no, it’s more than that,  it’s

  Enlarging the United State’s market share of the international weapons exporting business !  He’s going to double it by 2015.  That would take us from 30% of the market to 60% of the world market.    

What could possibly go wrong ?

India, which currently is seeking 126 fighter-jets worth over $10 billion, 10 large transport aircraft worth $6 billion, and other multi-billion dollar defense sales, could be among the possible beneficiaries. Allies seeking advanced U.S. weaponry and equipment, who now often buy elsewhere due to the cumbersome U.S. approval process, would draw immediate benefit from the reforms, U.S. officials said.

Isn’t this the world’s largest multicultural Asian democracy which currently is embroiled with a little misunderstanding with its Muslim neighbor, Pakistan, which we just happen to be giving money to with one hand, and droning with the other ?  

Although a “Democrat” in the House,  Berman,  is writing a version of the bill, others are also expressing enthusiasm for their kind of stimulating one stop shopping Mall of the Americas experience.   And there will be seasonal sales, and back to school specials, as the boring old technology is rotated to the clearance racks and the new, stylish and advanced technology is put on the front of the aisles.

Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., represents a district with aerospace and other manufacturers, and said reform is needed for the survival of U.S. manufacturing.

“We can begin to manufacture our way out of this recession by reforming our export controls,” Manzullo said in a speech at the American Enterprises Institute, a conservative think tank.

Okay, they’re a little bit worried about who might get the clearance rack weapontry items, but not too much.

Ah, streamlining ! Transparency !  Hope and Change !

Your kid didn’t need that publik skoolun fer kollage anyway. Call your local recruitment office now and reserve him or her a space for 2015.  They’ll leave the lights on for ya.