By Debra Sweet
What people began to regain in 2011 — or discover for the first time — most importantly, is their power and their voice to make change.
Let’s work together to make 2012 a year of visible resistance against the continuing – and new – crimes of this government.
In 2007, World Can’t Wait led protests against what seemed then a likely U.S. attack on Iran, accompanied by threats from the Bush Regime to send “bunker buster” missiles deeply into Iran’s territory. War could have happened then.
But the lies we heard coming from our government 5 years ago about Iran’s “nucular” capability from Bush now seem quaint. Recycled “intelligence” reports from years ago are presented by the Obama administration as justification for new threats, sanctions, and war preparations. When Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act on Saturday, he authorized not only indefinite detention by the military, but put hundreds of billions toward war, and the strongest sanctions ever against Iran’s access to international capital and markets for oil.
Larry Everest wrote yesterday, in Revolution:
Ground is being laid daily in the headlines and statements by politicians of every stripe in mainstream U.S. politics calling for aggression against Iran—all justified by unsubstantiated assertions that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons…
Iran is a non-nuclear, Third World country. The U.S. is the world’s most powerful nuclear weapons state—with over 4,000 warheads. It’s the only country to ever use nuclear weapons, killing 150,000-240,000 people in the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan (with many more dying of the effects of radiation for years after). It’s the main backer of the one country in the Middle East that actually does have nuclear weapons—Israel.
There are stirrings of opposition within the U.S. to such a dangerous war, risking, as it would, a much wider war, and possible use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. or Israel. The Midwest Antiwar Mobilization put out a call for protest:
If an attack begins in the morning, before noon our time, everyone should assemble that day at 5 p.m. at the Federal Plaza. If the attack comes later, we will protest at 5 p.m. the next day.
They say, and I agree:
The U.S. claims to uphold democracy and the rule of law, but in fact international law in the UN Charter and elsewhere condemns such aggression as a crime. Regardless of what excuse the U.S. gives for attacking another people, we must firmly oppose such U.S. slaughter of human beings.
Dear Debra Sweet — That picture \”Stop thinking like an American…\” is very much in keeping with the Earth Federation Movement\’s Earth Constitution. EFM encourages activists to study the Earth Constitution, a foundation for a new global system. It\’s all about the emergence of a worldwide, peaceful political and economic revolution. \”The World Can\’t Wait\” is on the front lines. Your efforts are very important. Thank you for caring for the whole world, not just the few. The Earth Federation is independent of, but parallel to, the inadequate United Nations whose UN Charter limits what the UN can do.