David Swanson's Blog, page 194
January 4, 2012
Join FireDogLake Book Salon This Saturday With David Swanson and Scott Horton
Scott Horton will host an online chat with you and David Swanson this Saturday, January 7th from 5 to 7 pm ET about Swanson's new book When the World Outlawed War, "a masterful account of how people in the United States and around the world worked to abolish war as a legitimate act of state policy and won in 1928, outlawing war with a treaty that is still on the books."
Occupied Territory
From HERE:
We're all terrorists now-- a discussion, with David Swanson, of the NDAA (National Defense Appropriations Act)--signed into law on New Year's Eve... It certifies President Barack Obama's secret powers of torture, indefinite detention without trial and the ability to wage perpetual war everywhere--including our own country!
Say goodbye to the Constitution, it's now merely a historical document. The country is still ours though--time to take it back.
Listen Now:
Charlottesville City Council Prepares to Support Peace
At the first meeting of the new Charlottesville, Va., City Council Tuesday evening, four of the five city council members publicly expressed their intention to support a resolution asking Congress to reduce military spending, a resolution likely to be discussed and voted on at the council's next meeting on the evening of January 16th, Martin Luther King Day. The fifth member expressed no view, so the possibility exists for unanimous support. One of the four members who expressed support for the draft resolution that we had proposed added that he would like to see it amended to also oppose the launching of a war against Iran. Another member also expressed an interest in revising the draft in some unspecified way prior to the next meeting.
The City of Charlottesville posts videos of its meetings online, but the video that can be downloaded and edited includes no audio, so I'm unable to show you just the relevant bits of the meeting. However, you can find them with the handy-dandy guide below this video:
First come 3-minute public comments from some of us in support of the resolution. Scroll ahead to . . . 17:07 for Brandon Collins, immediately followed at 20:43 by David Swanson. Jump ahead to 34:36 for Kirk Bowers, and to 38:30 for Nancy Carpenter. Then at 47:20 Stratton speaks on another issue but connects it very well to this one.
Following public comments, each of the five city council members replied briefly. First new member Kathy Galvin spoke on other topics and did not mention the resolution at all. Next, at 53:28 new member Dede Smith spoke in support of the resolution, and at 54:22 Kristin Szakos did so as well but suggested that it should be voted on at the next meeting on MLK Day, while at 55:10 Dave Norris spoke in support of the resolution and of adding to it opposition to attacking Iran. Norris's term as mayor ended at this meeting, but as mayor in 2011 he had been an early supporter of the resolution passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors asking Congress to reduce military spending. Brand new mayor Satyendra Huja spoke last and did not touch the topic at that point.
Now, enjoy lots of unrelated discussion or jump way ahead to 2:35:30 for Pat Lloyd, another member of the public who speaks up for the resolution. Then skip ahead to 2:49:48 at which point Mayor Huja says that he too supports the resolution, and Charlottesville City Manager Maurice Jones asks the five members to submit any proposed edits to the resolution to him (or to "staff") by the end of this week.
The book that I present to the Mayor in the video can be found at http://MIC50.org
Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice is supporting this resolution.
UPDATE: Meeting will be on 17th, not 16th.
January 3, 2012
Upcoming Speaking Events in Hilton Head, S.C.
David Swanson will speak and lead a discussion on the topic of
"Lifting the Shadow of War."
WHEN: 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. February 25, 2012.
WHERE: Hilton Head Library, 11 Beach City Road, Hilton Head, SC 29926, Tel. 843-255-6500, Fax 843-255-9495, Website, Map.
SPONSOR: Hilton Head for Peace, Tel. 603-264-6102.
Admission is free.
Printable flyer: PDF.
SECOND EVENT:
WHEN: 10:00 a.m. February 26, 2012
WHERE: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Low Country, 110 Malphrus Rd., Bluffton, SC, Tel. 837-3330.
Printable flyer: PDF.
Swanson will sign his books which include:
Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union (2009)
War Is A Lie (2010)
When the World Outlawed War (2011)
The Military Industrial Complex at 50 (2012)
Swanson helped plan the nonviolent occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington DC in 2011.
In December 2011, The Hook newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., named him a runner-up Person of the Year.
Swanson holds a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org
"David Swanson is a truth-teller and witness-bearer whose voice and action warrant our attention." —Cornel West, author.
"The world needs more true advocates of democracy like David Swanson!" —Thom Hartmann, radio host.
"David Swanson will be remembered and well recognized as the citizen who held up a lamp in the darkness and cried, as did good Tom Paine: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.'" —John Nichols, columnist, The Nation.
"David Swanson predicates his belief that nonviolence can change the world on careful research and historical analysis." —Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
"David Swanson's War Is A Lie may be the most comprehensive antiwar statement available in the English language." —Kevin Young, Znet.
"Our times cry out for a smart, witty and courageous Populist who hasn't forgotten how to play offense. Luckily we have David Swanson." —Mike Ferner, President of Veterans For Peace.
"David Swanson, who has been a one-man wonder leading the charge for accountability, writes a compelling narrative that inspires not just outrage, but ACTION." —Medea Benjamin, Code Pink and Global Exchange.
"David Swanson despises war and lying, and unmasks them both with rare intelligence. I learn something new on every page." —Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR.
"David Swanson's book is a masterful exposure of the emergence of a monarch-like president coupled with an effete, irresponsible, and constitutionally ignorant Congress." —Bruce Fein, former Associate Deputy Attorney General.
"David Swanson has written a fascinating account of how peace once became the law of the land. It is particularly pertinent in the era of the Endless War, by giving encouragement and suggestions of a path forward to those who want to give peace a chance." —Liz Holtzman, former member of the U.S. Congress.
"Swanson's book is far more uplifting and inspiring than virtually any other book in its genre, as it devotes itself to laying out a detailed plan for how American citizens — through the activism to which he has devoted himself — can bring about a rejuvenation of our political values." —Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com.
"David Swanson is an antidote to the toxins of complacency and evasion. He insists on rousing the sleepwalkers, confronting the deadly prevaricators and shining a bright light on possibilities for a truly better world." —Norman Solomon, author of War Made Easy.
January 2, 2012
Morality, Oxytocin, and Testosterone
If you watch the above pitch for Oxytocin as the hormone of morality, it will quickly become clear that this guy and the rest of us actually know very little about how our brains and blood and bodies work. In fact, another guy claims that oxytocin is the hormone of ethnocentrism, not of universal love. Of course it's being marketed as a spray that can make people trust you. And a little reflection can make you realize that there is an enormous gap between personal relations and war making. If you trust your boss at the Pentagon more will you work for war less? Would we really want the peace movement purged of everyone in it who isn't terribly nice or trusting?
There is, however, in the above video something I find particularly interesting. It's the part where he says that testosterone may be an opponent of oxytocin but it also makes people (or at least men) more eager to punish immoral actions by others. Now, I have no idea if that is true or as simple as described. I would be willing to bet that description will change soon if it hasn't already. What interests me is the possibility of thinking of the punishment of war as sharing a motivation with war — whether or not that motivation is tied to testosterone.
Of course, I want war makers punished if it will prevent and deter war making, but I want them punished with prison and rehab. I don't want them punished with war. The idea behind the United Nations, and the League of Nations before it, not to mention NATO, is to use war to punish war. This results, of course, in lots of wars that merely pretend to punish war. And that would not be the case if we were not considering war an available option. Europe has stopped thinking of war as an option internally, but not abroad. The United States thinks of little other than war in foreign relations, and is beginning to train domestic police to make war on their own. What we need is not so much the right hormone as the right way of thinking. That way of thinking will of course exist in a complex physical event within brains, but "complex" is the key word. If peace can be sprayed up somebody's nose, today's scientists are nowhere near knowing how, and a general inclination to trust or love does not begin to approach it.
January 1, 2012
NDAA and SOPA on Connect the Dots
Monday morning at 7 PT on Lila Garrett's CONNECT THE DOTS we'll review the old year and prioritize the new with:
DAVID SWANSON covering the NDAA (Nat'l. Defense Authorization Act) which has been signed into law. It gives the President absolute power over anyone he accuses of terrorism, including Americans. No formal charge is mandated, and there is no right to trial. There goes the two premises on which our justice system is based… presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. And while our democracy struggles to survive this assault…..
DAVID SEGAL Exec Director of "Demand Progress" covers SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act HR 3261) an Internet piracy bill presumably to protect copyright for the entertainment business. But it has the potential to severely censor the Internet. It needs mass phone calls to Congress to be stopped.
GAR ALPEROWITZ discusses his new book, AMERICA BEYOND CAPITALISM. Where are we headed in 2012? Monday morning at 7 on CONNECT THE DOTS.
Lila Garrett (Host of CONNECT THE DOTS)
KPFK 90.7 FM in LA; 98.7 Santa Barbara: 93.7 San Diego
Airs Mondays from 7AM to 8AM.
To pod cast or download the broadcast just use this link:
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/index.php?shokey=ctd
Each show is on line for three months.
Let Me Be Clear
Let me be clear.
Obama has always claimed the power to wage war on anyone anywhere, to search, seize, imprison, rendition, torture, or murder anyone. He has in fact openly murdered US citizens, among many other human beings.
Obama asked Congress to legislate the power for U.S. presidents to imprison anyone without any trial or any legal-looking process whatsoever, and to not make an exception for U.S. citizens.
Obama came close to getting what he wanted.
He got the power to imprison without trial.
December 31, 2011
December 30, 2011
A New Year's Wish From an Old Year
It's hard to hear messages from the past. They may pre-date any notion of environmentalism, of equal rights for women, or of morality without religion. Their goals may seem small precisely because those goals have already been achieved. But sometimes it can be useful to us to look back at long-gone hopes and plans that were later fulfilled, so that we can move on to the next step.
In 1849, peace activists gathered in Paris, and Victor Hugo welcomed them as follows. Years later he would prematurely lose patience with his long-term vision and stray from the cause. But in this moment he said something very valuable about city states making peace and the possibility of Europe making peace. With Europe now at peace internally, we can take our turn to dream of a world at peace.
But first, enjoy the ringing in of the new year and listen to this:
"Gentlemen: Many of you have come from the most distant points of the globe, your hearts full of holy and religious feelings. You count in your ranks men of letters, philosophers, ministers of the Christian religion, writers of eminence, and public men justly popular for their talents. You, gentlemen, have wished to adopt Paris as the centre of this meeting, whose sympathies, full of gravity and conviction, do not merely apply to one nation, but to the whole world. You come to add another principle of a still superior—of a more august kind—to those that now direct statesmen, rulers, and legislators. You turn over, as it were, the last page of the Gospel—that page which imposes peace on the children of the same God; and in this capital, which has as yet only decreed fraternity amongst citizens, you are about to proclaim the brotherhood of mankind.
"Gentlemen, we bid you a hearty welcome! In the presence of such a thought and such an act, there can be no room for the expression of personal thanks. Permit me, then, in the first words which I pronounce in your hearing, to raise my thoughts higher than myself, and, as it were, to omit all mention of the great honour which you have just conferred upon me, in order that I may think of nothing else than the great thing which we have met to do.
"Gentlemen, this sacred idea, universal peace, all nations bound together in a common bond, the Gospel for their supreme law, mediation substituted for war—this holy sentiment, I ask you, is it practicable? Can it be realized? Many practical men, many public men grown old in the management of affairs, answer in the negative. But I answer with you, and I answer without hesitation, Yes! and I shall shortly try to prove it to you. I go still further. I do not merely say it is capable of being put into practice, but I add that it is inevitable, and that its execution is only a question of time, and may be hastened or retarded. The law which rules the world is not, cannot be different from the law of God. But the divine law is not one of war—it is peace. Men commenced by conflict, as the creation did by chaos. Whence are they coming? From wars—that is evident. But whither are they going? To peace—that is equally evident.
"When you enunciate those sublime truths, it is not to be wondered at that your assertion should be met by a negative; it is easy to understand that your faith will be encountered by incredulity; it is evident that in this period of trouble and of dissension the idea of universal peace must surprise and shock, almost like the apparition of something impossible and ideal; it is quite clear that all will call it utopian; but for me, who am but an obscure labourer in this great work of the nineteenth century, I accept this opposition without being astonished or discouraged by it. Is it possible that you can do otherwise than turn aside your head and shut your eyes, as if in bewilderment, when in the midst of the darkness which still envelopes you, you suddenly open the door that lets in the light of the future?
"Gentlemen, if four centuries ago, at the period when war was made by one district against the other, between cities, and between provinces—if, I say, some one had dared to predict to Lorraine, to Picardy, to Normandy, to Brittany, to Auvergne, to Provence, to Dauphiny, to Burgundy,— 'A day shall come when you will no longer make wars—a day shall come when you will no longer arm men one against the other—a day shall come when it will no longer be said that the Normans are attacking the Picards, or that the people of Lorraine are repulsing the Burgundians —you will still have many disputes to settle, interests to contend for, difficulties to resolve; but do you know what you will substitute instead of armed men, instead of cavalry and infantry, of cannon, of falconets, lances, pikes and swords— you will select, instead of all this destructive array, a small box of wood, which you will term a ballot-box, and from which shall issue—what?—an assembly—an assembly in which you shall all live—an assembly which shall be, as it were, the soul of all—a supreme and popular council, which shall decide, judge, resolve everything—which shall make the sword fall from every hand, and excite the love of justice in every heart—which shall say to each, 'Here terminates your right, there commences your duty: lay down your arms! Live in peace!' And in that day you will all have one common thought, common interests, a common destiny; you will embrace each other, and recognise each other as children of the same blood, and of the same race; that day you will no longer be hostile tribes,—you will be a people; you will no longer be Burgundy, Normandy, Brittany, or Provence,—you will be France! You will no longer make appeals to war—you will do so to civilization.' If, at the period I speak of, some one had uttered these words, all men of a serious and positive character, all prudent and cautious men, all the great politicians of the period, would have cried out, 'What a dreamer! what a fantastic dream! How little this pretended prophet is acquainted with the human heart! What ridiculous folly! what an absurd chimera!'
"Yet, gentlemen, time has gone on and on, and we find that this dream, this folly, this absurdity, has been realized! And I insist upon this, that the man who would have dared to utter so sublime a prophecy, would have been pronounced a madman for having dared to pry into the designs of the Deity. Well, then, you at this moment say—and I say it with you—we who are assembled here, say to France, to England, to Prussia, to Austria, to Spain, to Italy, to Russia—we say to them, "A day will come when from your hands also the arms you have grasped will fall. A day will come when war will appear as absurd, and be as impossible, between Paris and London, between St. Petersburg and Berlin, between Vienna and Turin, as it would be now between Rouen and Amiens, between Boston and Philadelphia. A day will come when you, France—you, Russia—you, Italy—you, England—you, Germany—all of you, nations of the Continent, will, without losing your distinctive qualities and your glorious individuality, be blended into a superior unity, and constitute an European fraternity, just as Normandy, Britanny, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, have been blended into France. A day will come when the only battle-field will be the market open to commerce and the mind opening to new ideas. A day will come when bullets and bomb-shells will be replaced by votes, by the universal suffrage of nations, by the venerable arbitration of a great Sovereign Senate, which will be to Europe what the Parliament is to England, what the Diet is to Germany, what the Legislative Assembly is to France. A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in public museums, just as an instrument of torture is now, and people will be astonished how such a thing could have been."
Infiltrating Congress
I cannot stress sufficiently that we will best move Congress toward peace and justice by keeping it at arm's length and pressuring it without self-censorship, compromise, or entanglement with one or the other of its two branches: the Democratic or Republican. We are engaged in a long-term campaign to undo a plutocratic war state. Moving that campaign forward in the general culture is more important than which criminal enterprise has a majority of seats: the Democratic or Republican.
