No Nuclear War, No WW III
As we considered how to approach the contradictory aspects and on-going frightening prospects of the current war in Ukraine that could lead to nuclear war ending life on earth, we read Nan Levinson's most recent article in TomDispatch. We quote from Tom Engelhardt's introduction:
Revealing war crimes and other societal crimes
During the month of April We Are Not Your Soldiers traveled remotely to educational institutions in three states: New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Our speakers – Joy Damiani, Miles Megaciph and John Burns – also were located in three different states but all our “voyages” worked well via Zoom.
Endless War is Destoying the Earth
Earth Day? It's being used to sell things, like the Democrats' claims their unrealized plans could ever limit climate destruction, or to sell electric vehicles, or to focus people on objectives like recycling or gardening more.
But I want the earth and its people to survive, and so do you if you're reading this. So we can't settle for platitudes, or worse yet, accept the idea that things are just going to get worse.
As a freshman student on the first Earth Day in 1970, I organized a collection of garbage on the campus, which we dumped in a big mound at the administration building. (I was already a protester!) I knew the custodians at the college weren't the problem, that it was "the system" at fault, and that mere conservation efforts weren't enough. I couldn't identify "the system;" I was just outraged at the destruction of the environment, which at that point could have been turned around if not for the system.
We Are Not Your Soldiers
In March We Are Not Your Soldiers presenters spoke remotely at three alternative NYC high schools, a NYC middle school and to Spanish-dominant bilingual high school students in Philadelphia. A co-teacher at one of the NYC high schools wrote following Will's talk:
Thank you so much for your visit and your presentation today! I can't tell you how valuable of an experience that was for our students. We have been discussing and debriefing since you left. You touched on many issues we have been discussing in class, and your personal experience as a veteran adds so much that we can not. You had a huge impact on our students, and I can't thank you enough for that. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us and share some of your experiences today.
Both are worse
At age 14, I decided the Democrats were the "war party," having only looked at WWII and the wars on Korea and Vietnam. Then R. Nixon and H. Kissinger considered using nukes to hold onto Vietnam and threaten China, and I was persuaded the Republicans are every bit as bad.
Since 2005, every time I write to World Can't Wait supporters about how dangerous the party in power is, I get responses saying, essentially - wait, the other party is worse!
How does the U.S. identify war crimes?
While the victims of U.S. wars are nameless, U.S. media is 24/7 on the tragic death Russia is bringing to Ukraine. Children, pregnant women, elderly have all died there, just as they have in Yemen by the Saudis with U.S. weapons, as they died in Libya by U.S./NATO forces.
Sudan's Struggle
Introducing a new blog by Carol Dudek: In the fall of 2019, we cheered on the great outpouring of mass protest which brought down the 30-year president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir. The determined, outraged, participation of women was especially decisive in forcing his resignation.
But last October, the military staged a coup to remove the interim government which succeeded al-Bashir. An intense 5-month battle has ensued in the streets, with people coming back time after time even though the military has killed many hundreds.
What about the interests of humanity?
People have written us with a legit point: People around the globe have suffered historically from reactionary violence backed by the U.S. and its allies - right now in Yemen for instance - but these aggressive acts get mostly ignored by U.S. politicians and press, while the Russian attack on Ukraine is 24/7 news. But then, no one has proved that the U.S. isn't #1 in hypocrisy.
Don't support either "side" in this
This war is dangerous for humanity and the planet! We shouldn't support either "side."
It's no exaggeration to say that the showdown between Russia and the U.S./NATO bloc has profound dangers for the people of Ukraine. Millions are already facing death and displacement from the immediate incursion of the Russian military. Russia doesn't want NATO at its borders in its mission to control Eastern Europe.
Many hundreds of millions more are endangered by the U.S. missile launchers recently installed in Poland and Romania, on the border of Russia. These are MK 41's, the same weapon the U.S. used thousands of times on people of Iraq, Syria and Yugoslavia. The U.S. wants to encircle Russia with NATO countries in its mission to maintain imperialist dominance.
Stealing from Afghanistan's people
I have such a vivid memory of a long-planned anti-globilization movement protest in Washington DC in late September 2001. Lots of people didn't come; those that did acted in the face of bellicose USA! USA! jingoism emanating from The White House a week before the US invaded Afghanistan.
Bread & Puppet Theater organized a procession of 20 foot tall puppets of women carrying children's bodies, moving slowly, dramatically collapsing to a drumbeat every block or so to convey the message that innocent people will die. It was breathtaking in its reality, and residents of DC stared, captured by the spectacle, as I was.
That nightmare has come true, and worse. After the U.S. spent $300 million per day to dominate Afghanistan, the Biden administration has "withheld" -- called by normal people "stolen" -- $7 billion in Afghan funds held in the U.S.
Call of the Ban Killer Drones Campaign: No armed drones for the German Military
Action month is January, 2022 in the run-up to the vote at the 47th Federal Delegates Conference of the Green Party on 28/29 January 2022 on the possible arming of German military (Bundeswehr) drones.
While the use of armed drones is proliferating around the world, led by the United States and its allies, Germany, almost alone among the industrialized nations, has not added lethally armed drones to its arsenal. Ironically, after last year’s elections when the long standing conservative coalition that governed Germany lost power, leaders of the new coalition of liberal parties made a move to arm their country’s drones. In a coalition agreement at the end of November 2021, the party leaders of the Social Democrat Party SPD, the Green Party and the Free Democrat Party FPD, stated: “Subject to binding and transparent conditions and taking ethical and security aspects into account, we will therefore enable the arming of Bundeswehr (German military) drones during this legislative period.”
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