STOP THESE WARS

By Margaret Flowers, M.D.
Margaret Flower is the Congressional Fellow, Physicians for a National Health Program

What do you care about?

I became a physician because I care about people’s health. Specifically, I became a pediatrician because children are our future and I wanted to be part of the community that gives each child tools for a healthy, productive and fulfilling life.

Sadly, I discovered during my pediatric practice that the health environment in this country, unlike every other industrialized nation, is heavily corporatized and so places tremendous barriers to care. This makes high-quality care difficult for physicians to provide and patients to receive. Now I advocate full-time for a national health program, Medicare for all, so that every person living in the United States will have access to the same standard of high-quality medical care.

Each of us has an issue that we care deeply about. Each of us works in our own way to create change. We call our members of Congress, send emails, educate others about our issue, attend rallies and fundraisers. Yet despite this, the social wellbeing of our nation continues to deteriorate.  Our resources are used to build bases and weapons of war while at home education, access to health care and jobs are declining and incarceration rates, homicide rates and stress levels are soaring.

Our current state of permanent war is killing us. There are the consequences of sending our people out to kill and the psychological harm which may lead to violence at home. There are the injuries from which many of our military members will never fully recover and the resulting costs to them and to their families, including bankruptcy and foreclosure from medical bills.

There is the squandering of our youth who, unable to afford college or to find a job, are lured by the promises of recruiters and see no other option but to join the military. Imagine if instead of spending one million dollars a year to send one soldier to Afghanistan we spent the money to provide twenty people with an education or jobs at home. Imagine if that person were employed not to kill but to create, to improve conditions at home.

I’m certain you could find many other ways that issues of peace and social and economic justice are interrelated. The point is that it is time to stand together in solidarity and to demand the social changes that we require. Those who are most affected are the ones with the greatest moral authority to speak out and we must stand behind them in their actions.

This is why I will stand behind the veterans on December 16 at the White House and will join them in their action. They know the ravages of war. And they are laying the path that we must take of non-violent resistance, actions increasing in size and frequency.

All of the signs point to tougher times ahead, economically and also the consequences we will face because of our actions. History tells us that we can expect that as Power feels threatened, our civil liberties will be further stolen from us and some will be treated harshly and unjustly for speaking out such as Bradley Manning and Julian Assange are experiencing at present. The propaganda and attacks against those who dare to speak out will increase.

However, in these times, it is more important than ever that we do speak out. To be silent is to be complicit. We must not be complicit. We must stand together strongly on the side of justice so that one day justice will prevail.

Originally posted on the Huffington Post:
By Dan Kovalik
Human and Labor Rights Lawyer
Posted: December 8, 2010 12:05 PM
There is a lot of talk right now on Capitol Hill about the need to balance the federal budget. Sadly, both Democrats and Republicans alike are largely debating about how best to balance the budget upon the backs of the poor and working people (who are many times the very same people) and the elderly. First and foremost on the chopping block appears to be Social Security and Medicare — the lifeline for millions of seniors in this country and the only hope for any sort of retirement for the vast majority of people in this country.

Meanwhile, belying any real interest in balancing the budget, the extension of unemployment benefits for millions of people out of work through no fault of their own is being made contingent upon tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

At the same time, what is largely absent from this debate is discussion of the war, which includes military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, allied Pakistan, military exercises in the Yellow Sea and elsewhere, and the maintenance of over 800 U.S. military bases throughout the world. To put the latter into perspective, Great Britain and Ancient Rome, at the very height of their Empires, never had more than 40 military bases internationally.

The U.S. is always at war, whether the pretext is fighting Communism or terrorism, or, as is usually the actual case, fighting against national liberation efforts and for the ability of U.S. corporations to expand their domain and control.

While President Obama had promised during his campaign to “change the mindset that leads us to war,” and while many of us, myself included, believed him, Obama could not even wait until his first weekend in office before launching one of his many (many more than Bush) drone attacks into Pakistan, predictably killing mostly civilians. In addition, just after it was announced that he won the Nobel Prize for Peace, Obama, almost to spite the Nobel committee, announced the “surge” in Afghanistan which is putting 30,000 more American lives in jeopardy, leading to a massive increase of civilian deaths in Afghanistan over those killed during Bush’s tenure, and further inflaming tensions in the Middle East.

Indeed, Obama has been more hawkish than Bush in a number of ways as seen, for example, in his re-commencing funding for the brutal “red berets” of Indonesia — which even Bush refused to do on human rights grounds — and in his re-commissioning the 4th Fleet in the Caribbean which Eisenhower had de-commissioned in the 1950’s.

In the end, while Obama is rightly criticized for being too conciliatory to the rich and powerful — to Wall Street bankers and to the Republicans — he is unflinchingly harsh when it comes to unleashing violence throughout the world.

And so, the war goes on unabated. If it were not enough that the war is currently costing the lives of tens of thousands of innocents abroad as well the lives of thousands of young U.S. military personnel, most of which signed up because they could not find work here, the war is eating up more and more of the federal budget. Depending upon how one counts, the war (both current and past military actions which we continue to pay for) accounts for around half of the total budget of the United States.

No matter how you count, it is clear that the current Af-Pak and Iraq wars will cost this country well over $1 trillion. A modest proposal for cutting the deficit would be to start there, and to try at all costs to spare social spending for the growing needy in our country.

As Noam Chomsky explains, the reason the war is not up for debate is the fact that there has been a political consensus between the two parties since World War II that the U.S. economy would continue to be primed through military spending rather than social spending — social spending having the disadvantage, from the point of view of those who rule this country, of distributing wealth downward rather than upward.

Military spending, on the other hand, amounts to a regressive tax which requires the vast majority of working people to subsidize what President Eisenhower decried as “the military-industrial complex” — that is, high tech companies, weapons manufacturers, and the new proliferation of mercenary organizations (e.g., Black Water, DynCorp and many more) receiving lucrative defense contracts. Further, this spending allows the U.S. to engage in military efforts abroad fought (despite the more lofty goals claimed) in the interests of allowing such corporate interests to expand their markets, and increase their profits, even more.

It is this type of corporate welfare system, along with periodic bank bailouts and tax cuts for the super-rich, which suits the two political parties just fine. Welfare for the truly needy, however, is generally abhorrent to them, and thus the limited nature of the current debate about the federal deficit.

Of course, for those of us concerned about basic notions of fairness and justice, and for those of us who are literally dying at the hands of this system, this state of affairs is completely unacceptable, and must be resisted. A good place to start would be the December 16 anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. For more information, go to Stop These Wars.

A letter from Ron Kovic to young veterans and GIs

DECEMBER 9, 2010

BY RON KOVIC

The following is a personal appeal from Ron Kovic, Vietnam War veteran and author of Born on the Fourth of July, to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and active-duty service members. Kovic issued the appeal to bring more veterans and GIs into the anti-war struggle and to support the work of March Forward!.

As a former United States Marine Corps infantry sergeant, who was shot and paralyzed from the mid-chest down on Jan. 20, 1968, during my second tour of duty in Vietnam, and someone who has lived with the wounds of that war for over 40 years, I am writing this letter to ask you to join me as we begin a critical new phase in the growing anti-war movement.

Many of you have already served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. You have been coming home now for almost 10 years. Many have begun to question, to doubt these wars and our leaders. Over two million of you have served honorably in both theatres of conflict.

Though many years separate us, we are brothers and sisters. Though we have fought in conflicts generations apart, we have all been to the same place. We know what war is. We understand it, and for many of us, our lives will never be the same again. In many ways, we represent a very powerful force in our country—a moral, spiritual, and political high ground that is unassailable, a potential to transform our nation that is undeniable. No one knows peace or the preciousness of life better than the soldiers who have fought in war, or been affected by it directly: the mother of a son who has died, a wife who will never see her husband again, a child who will never have a father, a father who will never see his son again.

For, it is we who live with the physical and emotional scars of war, and we who live with these wounds everyday, and feel their weight and pain every morning. It is we who have walked and wheeled through the streets of our country and watched children stare at us and wonder why. And it is we who cry out now for the future, for a world without war.

We are the reminders of what war can do, of how it can wound and hurt, and diminish all that is good and human. We struggle everyday to believe in a life that was almost taken away from us. We know that even though we have lost, though parts of our bodies may be missing, though we may not be able to see or feel, we are important men and women, with important lessons to teach, with important things to share.

Those of us lucky enough to have survived combat yearn for life now, for beauty, for all that is decent and good, for in war we saw the worst in the human being. We saw poverty and death, killing and savagery, the darkest sides of the human soul, the most hated parts of our humanity.

I, like many Americans who served in Vietnam and those now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan (and countless human beings throughout history), had been willing to give my life for my country with little knowledge or awareness of what that really meant.

Like many of you who joined up after 9/11, I trusted and believed and had no reason to doubt the sincerity and motives of my government. It would not be until many months after being wounded, and while recovering at a veterans’ hospital in New York that I would begin to question whether I and the others who had gone to that war had gone for nothing.

Change does not come easily, and opposing one’s government during a time of war is often very difficult. You’ve been taught to follow orders, to obey and not question, to go along with the program and do exactly what you’re told. You learned that in boot camp. You learned that the day the drill instructors started screaming at you. It is “Yes Sir” and “No Sir” and nothing in between. There is the physical and verbal abuse, the vicious threats and constant harassment to keep you off balance. It is a powerful conditioning process, a process that began long ago, long before we signed those papers at the recruit stations of our hometowns, a process deeply ingrained in the American culture and psyche, and it has shaped and influenced us from our earliest childhood.

The late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” King went on to say that, “The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty. Even when pressed with the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within ones own bosom and the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are often on the verge of being mesmerized but we must move on.”

Over 40 years have passed since Dr. King spoke those words to an overflow crowd at the Riverside church in New York City in 1967, and the tragic lessons of Vietnam continue to go unheeded. The same patterns of wars, lies, aggression and brutality continue to repeat themselves. Another country, another occupation, another reason to hate and fear, but in the end it is the same crime being committed over and over again, the same innocent civilians being killed, the same young men and women returning home in caskets and body bags and wheelchairs.

We have petitioned our government time and time again. We have peacefully marched and demonstrated for over a decade yet the killing and mayhem continues. Precious lives continue to be wasted as another generation of young men and women are squandered in this, our latest foreign policy debacle.

Our leaders refuse to listen. They refuse to learn. How many more senseless wars, flag draped caskets, grieving mothers, paraplegics, amputees, stressed-out sons and daughters, innocent civilians slaughtered before we finally decide to break the silence of this shameful night? Many of us trusted and believed that change would come, these wars would end, and that we would finally we be listened to but that is not at all what has happened.

We have been tragically misled. We have been deceived and betrayed. We have been promised peace and we have been given war. We have been told there would be change and nothing is changing. Rather than learning the lessons from the disastrous fiasco in Iraq, our government continues down the path of destruction, brutality, aggression and war, dragging us deeper into another senseless and unnecessary conflict in Afghanistan. The physical and psychological battles from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will rage on for decades, deeply impacting the lives of citizens in all countries involved.

As the 43rd anniversary of my wounding in Vietnam approaches, in many ways I feel my injury in that war has been a blessing in disguise. I have been given the opportunity to move through that dark night of the soul to a new shore, to gain an understanding, a knowledge, a completely different vision. I now believe that I have suffered for a reason, and in many ways I have found that reason in my commitment to peace and non-violence. We who have witnessed the obscenity of war and experienced its horror and terrible consequences have an obligation to rise above our pain and sorrow and turn the tragedy of our lives into a triumph.

I have come to believe that there is nothing in the lives of human beings more terrifying than war, and nothing more important then for those of us who have experienced it to share its awful truth. A time comes when a people can no longer wait. A time comes when the agonies, the suffering, have become too great.

A time comes when a people must act and do what is necessary. Lives are at stake. No longer can we trust the President or politicians to end these wars. No longer can we believe them when they say the troops will come home soon. They have long since lost their credibility.

Each day that passes another life is lost. Each hour that this war drags on the need for a daring new approach by the anti war movement becomes more apparent. Bold, creative, and imaginative leadership is needed, and I do not believe there is a group more suited for that task at this time than the veterans of our nation’s most recent conflict.

At exactly 10:00 a.m., Thursday morning, Dec. 16, 2010, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, including troops now serving in the armed forces of the United States, will be leading a dramatic act of non-violent civil disobedience in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. with other brave veterans and citizens, protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling for all troops to be brought home immediately and without delay.

May this action and other actions like it in the days ahead represent a growing awareness by the American people that only they can end these wars and begin to redirect the priorities of our nation toward more positive and life affirming goals.

I am writing this letter to you today asking you to join them on that day—and the difficult days ahead, to bravely, and with great dignity step over that line you’ve not stepped over before and begin to exert that powerful moral force you as veterans and active-duty troops represent; to raise your voices, to protest, to demonstrate, to end these wars and make our country a better place.

This is my hope.

This is my prayer.

With great admiration and respect,

Ron Kovic

Vietnam Veteran, author, Born on the Fourth of July

Join Ron Kovic and other veterans in the fight against these wars.

December 3, 2010

Dear President Obama,

A week ago, I wrote you on this same subject but since I’ve not yet received a reply either personal or automated, I felt I should try again.

As president of Veterans For Peace (VFP), a national organization of military veterans, I want to convey to you our serious opposition to your administration’s policy of ongoing wars, proxy wars, occupations and drone strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Yemen.

Your policies are taking innocent lives, causing untold, lifelong suffering, rapidly destroying our economy, our environment and ultimately making all of us considerably less safe.

Since there are no logical reasons rooted in human or planetary betterment for these policies, we are left to conclude what is logical and obvious: that their purpose is to maintain and advance what has sadly become the global U.S. Empire.

VFP has voiced our opposition to these wars at every national demonstration and with countless local actions, letters, faxes, emails and phone calls.

We requested a meeting with you shortly after your inauguration, to no avail.  We are now requesting another meeting.  And since we have tried all the above many times over, this is what we now propose.

If, within 10 days from now, we do not hear a positive response to our request for a meeting, we are prepared to bring a large delegation of our members to Washington before the end of this month.  We will come in person to the White House to meet with you or until we are dragged away in full view of our nation and the world–military veterans, carrying their nation’s flag, seeking a meeting with their president in the season of Peace.

Like the bonus marchers of the 1930’s, we demand our bonus be paid.  The bonus for our service and the many sacrifices of our comrades is peace.

In this season of Peace I remain,
Most sincerely yours,

Mike Ferner, National President
Veterans For Peace
USN Hospital Corps 1969-73

Organized locally.
Recognized nationally.
Exposing the true costs of war and militarism since 1985.

Action URL: http://OregonProgressiveNetwork.org/actions/VFP-to-Take-a-Stand-for-Peace-at-the-White-House-Dec-16

Action Name: VFP to Take a Stand for Peace at the White House Dec 16

Date: 2010-12-16

Location: White House
1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE NW
WASHINGTON, DC, 20500-0003
MAP

Organization: Veterans for Peace #132

MORE INFO: http://www.stopthesewars.org

Description: Come to DC on December 16! VFP led action at the White House

Comrades, Brothers and Sisters,
The following sentence is critical, so please read on. On Dec. 16th, 2010, veterans and others will stage what will be the largest veteran-led civil resistance to U.S. wars in recent history. All of us in Veterans For Peace need to pull together to make sure those will not be empty words.

Many of us have grown so used to the state of war being a constant these past 10 years that people no longer see it as an emergency the way they did prior to the Iraq invasion, when millions of us turned out worldwide to attempt to stop the oncoming war. I want us return to seeing it as an emergency, a fire that must be put out and one that we will put our bodies on the line to extinguish. Many, if not most of us, engage in anti-war activities of one sort or another on a regular basis, usually in our own locales. This action described below is different. It is not meant to be yet another anti-war action among many where perhaps a handful of vets take a stand and get arrested, barely generating a blip on the screen of world and U.S. consciousness.

The purpose of this action is twofold, direct and simple, yet profound. By showing scores of U.S. veterans being literally dragged away from the White House as they demand peace, we expose the hypocrisy of a government that is waging (and promoting) worldwide, endless warfare during a season when we celebrate “Peace on Earth.” But more important, it will vividly demonstrate that serious civil resistance is alive and well in the United States.

This will only happen if there are more than relative handfuls of us taking part. What we are asking is that your chapter support this, preferably by sending some (or all!) of your members to take part, but if you cannot do that, by enthusiastically spreading the word.

Here’s what Doug Zachary wrote about his participation: “We are at a critical time in world history. Will the Western democracies continue to develop along the lines of Rousseau, Voltaire, Jefferson, King, Chavez and company? Or does the future hold a feudal world committed to slavery and fascism? The extent to which we resist is the extent to which there is reason to hope. Our witness, even if ignored in our times, will be on record and will inspire democratic revolutionaries far into the future.”

To make sure it is not “ignored in our times,” we have three top videographers, and excellent still photographers committed to sending out a record of our resistance worldwide. We also have enthusiastic support from large non-veteran organizations that will mobilize their members in support (see flyer).

When you look at the signatures on the letter below, you’ll see many names you recognize, quite a few of our buddies, people who have been VFP stalwarts for years. What I’m asking is for all of us not to leave them hanging out to dry (Ferner says “freeze”). You get the picture. It’s the season—the more the merrier. Let’s demonstrate that VFP, when it comes to putting ourselves on the line, is a force for peace to be reckoned with.

If you want to be involved please e-mail stopthesewars@gmail.com or register online at http://www.stopthesewars.org, and we will keep you posted. Also, to make this a powerful reality, there will be expenses for banners, flyers, posters, legal, etc., so please make a donation at http://www.stopthesewars.org
For Peace and Solidarity,

Stop These Wars or We’ll Fill Your Jails

Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2010-11-29 16:16

http://warisacrime.org/content/stop-these-wars-or-well-fill-your-jails

By David Swanson

Here’s an easy question: would you rather go to jail for a few hours with a bunch of friends or die?

Here’s a poorly kept secret: the wars that a majority of Americans want ended are not ending, and the war machine that a majority of Americans want cut back is growing.

Here’s a situation that is not secret at all but too horrifying for us to acknowledge: if the war machine continues on its current course, we will not survive it economically, environmentally, or with any civil liberties or representative government intact. If we do not reach those catastrophes it will be because blowback or nuclear proliferation takes us out first.

You may not die for the Pentagon, but if you do not it will be your children or grandchildren. Would you rather go to jail for a few hours with a bunch of friends or see your grandchildren killed? Is the question getting easier?

Here’s a well kept secret: many Americans are doing something about it, and Veterans for Peace is taking the lead. We’re going to the White House on Thursday, December 16th at 10 a.m.: http://stopthesewars.org

You may have other obligations, but do they outweigh what’s at stake here? How about this question: If you cannot risk arrest at the White House with us on December 16th to stop these wars, can you be there in support? Can you help with transportation or take photos and shoot videos and write reports? If you cannot be there in support, can you phone Congress and the media and demand the defunding of the war machine and an end to wars opposed by majorities of Americans in every poll?

The last time I was arrested at the White House we were “processed” at a table outside a jail and never entered any jail at all. Yes, it takes hours to do what could take minutes. Yes, the handcuffs pinch. But doesn’t the knowledge that we are bombing families in other countries pinch a little too?

Don’t take it from me. Take it from these people who will also be there:

“I am shamed by the actions of my government and I will do everything in my power to make it stop killing innocent people in my name.” — Leah Bolger

“‘….to protect and defend the Constitution…’ I took that oath as a sailor, and later as a police officer. I don’t consider that oath to have an expiration date because I believe in accountability, justice and peace. Where I come from, we say: ‘You don’t have to stand tall, but you’ve GOT to stand up.’ Stand up December 16, 2010, at the White House.” — Erik Lobo

“Besides causing untold suffering and destruction, our futile and unending wars distract us from addressing unprecedented humanitarian and planetary crises. To allow war to even exist dishonors the teachers of peace who came before us. To fail to oppose war is to submit to those who make war. I choose to honor the peace teachers; I choose to oppose and resist the war makers.” — Kim Carlyle

“As Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner of a year ago, embraces war on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, he’s joined by most all the Democratic Party, and pushed on by the cabal of Republican war-mongers newly dominant in Congress. Obama was the right man for the job of expanding US domination internationally, and domestic surveillance and police-state measures. He’s not solely responsible for the system.; neither is he a socialist, or illegitimate based on his birth. But we are right to be protesting at the White House now, as we were right when the Bush regime lived there. People who want to stop these wars being carried out in our name have to be visible and vocal about it, now!” — Debra Sweet

“I strongly and enthusiastically support these actions! May we move forward peacefully, nonviolently, and with great courage.” — Ron Kovic

“I speak and write a lot about these things; but there comes a time when if you don’t put your body on the line, then the speaking and writing becomes posturing. That time is now. December 16 at the White House. ” — Joel Kovel

“Those who know the full extent of America’s imperial reach have a unique obligation to let their fellow citizens know what is being done in all of our names. But it is more than an obligation for veterans, since many of us have served in America’s invasions and occupations abroad. Perhaps it is also a privilege, another chance to express our love for this country, this time putting their bodies on the line to demand that America once again join the peace loving nations of this world.” — Fred Nagel

“I listened today to Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech given at New York’s Riverside Church in 1967, ‘Why I Oppose the Vietnam War.’ If any of us don’t know it, make it a point to hear it. His truth is timeless. When I hear it, I feel as deeply as possible, the necessity and the responsibility to be a Veteran For Peace. My conscience, my refusal to let the world change me are in the forefront of my existence. I will be with my brothers and sisters on Dec. 16.” — Jay Wenk

“When Barack Obama claimed that by not prosecuting the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the previous administration we would be able to go into the future with our core values intact, he was condemning this country to have no moral future. He was, in effect, saying that our core values worth defending are imperialism and capitalism and hypocrisy. All three can only flourish in a climate of no accountability and a belief in the necessary ethic of collateral damage. It is our responsibility to change that.” — Robert Shetterly

“War for empire, endless and cruel war, resulting in untold suffering, destruction and death for millions, a war economy here at home that steals from ordinary citizens and makes the few enormously wealthy, these are powerful reasons for us to put our bodies on the wheels, the levers, the apparatus of this vile war-making machine and demand that it stop. Enough is enough. There is no glory, no heroism, no good wars, no justification whatsoever, it is all, all of it, based on lies. I’ll be in Washington on December 16 with other veterans, resisting this war mentality, demanding its end. — Tarak Kauff

“For what do I stand? First, I will not stand for: a Democrat, a Republican, a flag, a border, a government, or a war of any kind. I will stand for the People, to protect and defend the Constitution, for peace and justice. See you in Washington, D.C., December 16, Twenty-Ten.” — Will Covert

“I could not miss this manifestation of veterans’ strong condemnation of the wars, and of Obama for continuing them. In this season of supposed peace on earth, we who previously carried out U.S. foreign policy with our bodies must speak out to say, ‘NO MORE! Bring the troops home NOW!'” — Ellen Barfield

“We are at a critical time in world history. Will the Western democracies continue to develop along the lines of Rousseau, Voltaire, Jefferson, King, Chavez and company? Or does the future hold a feudal world committed to slavery and fascism? The extent to which we resist is the extent to which there is reason to hope. Our witness, even if ignored in our times, will be on record and will inspire democratic revolutionaries far into the future. — Doug Zachary

“The Empire has met the Resistance and it is us! 12.16.10. Washington. Be there!” — Mike Ferner

“I have three granddaughters whose futures will be bleak unless we can reverse the American slide into endless war. It’s time to move the resistance up a notch. That’s why I’ll be joining the veteran-led civil resistance on December 16 at the White House.” — Ken Mayers

“I’m joining my fellow veterans on December 16 because, plain and simple, it is the right thing to do. I am against war, murder, and torture. Enough! I have a beautiful daughter and a very cute goddaughter. I owe them my best effort towards achieving a more just world. When we all stand up for peace war will end.” — Mike Tork

“The trip to Washington will be an opportunity to stand in solidarity with fellow engaged citizens who are paying attention. As much as it will be a privilege, it is an obligation to add another voice to the growing chorus objecting to obscene wars that serve none other than the rich and powerful. The majorities in the lands subject to our occupations and wars object to our presence, and we the people share more in common with the victims in those countries than we do with the war profiteers here at home. Though we can expect the mainstream media to give little notice to our presence in D.C., that failure will only serve to make these truths more evident.” — Dud Hendrick

“I will not be silent. I’m going to the White House to demand an end to these wars!” — Mike Hearington

“All who resist keep hope alive. All who succumb to fear, despair and apathy become enemies of hope. They become, in their passivity, agents of injustice. If the enemies of hope are finally victorious, the poison of violence will become not only the language of power but the language of opposition. And those who resist with nonviolence are in times like these the thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration.” — Chris Hedges

David Swanson is the author of “War Is A Lie” http://warisalie.org

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hope_in_the_21st_century_20101128/

Real Hope Is About Doing Something

Posted on Nov 29, 2010

AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Lt. Dan Choi, center, and other demonstrators stand at the White House fence after handcuffing themselves to it Nov. 15 during a protest for gay rights. The group demanded that President Barack Obama keep his promise to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

By Chris Hedges

On Dec. 16 I will join Daniel Ellsberg, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern and several military veteran activists outside the White House to protest the futile and endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of us will, after our rally in Lafayette Park, attempt to chain ourselves to the fence outside the White House. It is a pretty good bet we will all spend a night in jail. Hope, from now on, will look like this.

Hope is not trusting in the ultimate goodness of Barack Obama, who, like Herod of old, sold out his people. It is not having a positive attitude or pretending that happy thoughts and false optimism will make the world better. Hope is not about chanting packaged campaign slogans or trusting in the better nature of the Democratic Party. Hope does not mean that our protests will suddenly awaken the dead consciences, the atrophied souls, of the plutocrats running Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil or the government.

Hope does not mean we will halt the firing in Afghanistan of the next Hellfire missile, whose explosive blast sucks the oxygen out of the air and leaves the dead, including children, scattered like limp rag dolls on the ground. Hope does not mean we will reform Wall Street swindlers and speculators, or halt the pillaging of our economy as we print $600 billion in new money with the desperation of all collapsing states. Hope does not mean that the nation’s ministers and rabbis, who know the words of the great Hebrew prophets, will leave their houses of worship to practice the religious beliefs they preach. Most clerics like fine, abstract words about justice and full collection plates, but know little of real hope.

Hope knows that unless we physically defy government control we are complicit in the violence of the state. All who resist keep hope alive. All who succumb to fear, despair and apathy become enemies of hope. They become, in their passivity, agents of injustice. If the enemies of hope are finally victorious, the poison of violence will become not only the language of power but the language of opposition. And those who resist with nonviolence are in times like these the thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration.

Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. Hope does not come with the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is an action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and the more potent hope becomes. Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope does not believe in force. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on us all. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope’s power and it is why it can never finally be defeated. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face.

Hope is not for the practical and the sophisticated, the cynics and the complacent, the defeated and the fearful. Hope is what the corporate state, which saturates our airwaves with lies, seeks to obliterate. Hope is what our corporate overlords are determined to crush. Be afraid, they tell us. Surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe from terror. Don’t resist. Embrace the alienation of our cheerful conformity. Buy our products. Without them you are worthless. Become our brands. Do not look up from your electronic hallucinations to think. No. Above all do not think. Obey.

W.H. Auden wrote:

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The powerful do not understand hope. Hope is not part of their vocabulary. They speak in the cold, dead words of national security, global markets, electoral strategy, staying on message, image and money. The powerful protect their own. They divide the world into the damned and the blessed, the patriots and the enemy, the rich and the poor. They insist that extinguishing lives in foreign wars or in our prison complexes is a form of human progress. They cannot see that the suffering of a child in Gaza or a child in the blighted pockets of Washington, D.C., diminishes and impoverishes us all. They are deaf, dumb and blind to hope. Those addicted to power, blinded by self-exaltation, cannot decipher the words of hope any more than most of us can decipher hieroglyphics. Hope to Wall Street bankers and politicians, to the masters of war and commerce, is not practical. It is gibberish. It means nothing.

I cannot promise you fine weather or an easy time. I cannot assure you that thousands will converge on Lafayette Park in solidarity. I cannot pretend that being handcuffed is pleasant. I cannot say that anyone in Congress or the White House, anyone in the boardrooms of the corporations that cannibalize our nation, will be moved by pity to act for the common good. I cannot tell you these wars will end or the hungry will be fed. I cannot say that justice will roll down like a mighty wave and restore our nation to sanity. But I can say this: If we resist and carry out acts, no matter how small, of open defiance, hope will not be extinguished. If all we accomplish is to assure a grieving mother in Baghdad or Afghanistan, a young man or woman crippled physically and emotionally by the hammer blows of war, that he or she is not alone, our resistance will be successful. Hope cannot be sustained if it cannot be seen.

Any act of rebellion, any physical defiance of those who make war, of those who perpetuate corporate greed and are responsible for state crimes, anything that seeks to draw the good to the good, nourishes our souls and holds out the possibility that we can touch and transform the souls of others. Hope affirms that which we must affirm. And every act that imparts hope is a victory in itself.

Also from Auden:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Chris Hedges is Truthdig columnist and a senior fellow at The Nation Institute. His newest book is “Death of the Liberal Class.” More information on the Dec. 16 protest can be found at www.stopthesewars.org.