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From David Swanson, a good article to bring up on AWARE on the Air.
(Is it happening today? I'm not sure whether I can attend but will
try, if it's on.)<br>
<br>
"[...] The point is that war was popularly rejected.
<p>Why does this matter? It's not a case for optimism, or for
pessimism. I continue to have very little use for either bit of
self-indulgence. The forces that press for more wars have not
gone away. Neither have they been empowered. The point is that
those who nonsensically proclaim that stopping wars is impossible
cannot get away with saying that anymore."<br>
</p>
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<td>[ufpj-activist] Admit It: Things Are Going Well</td>
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<td>Sun, 15 Sep 2013 22:39:19 -0400</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>David Swanson <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:davidcnswanson@gmail.com"><davidcnswanson@gmail.com></a></td>
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<td>ufpj-activist <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ufpj-activist@lists.mayfirst.org"><ufpj-activist@lists.mayfirst.org></a></td>
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<h1 class="">Admit It: Things Are Going Well</h1>
By David Swanson<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://warisacrime.org/content/admit-it-things-are-going-well">http://warisacrime.org/content/admit-it-things-are-going-well</a><br>
<p><i>When something goes right<br>
Oh, it's likely to lose me<br>
It's apt to confuse me<br>
It's such an unusual sight<br>
</i>—Paul Simon</p>
<p>Larry Summers has proven unacceptable to oversee the
continued destruction of the U.S. economy. The U.S. public
has successfully rejected proposed missile strikes on Syria.
My Congressman was among the majority who listened. Today was
beautiful. The Orioles won. The Cowboys lost. The
University of Virginia avoided losing by not playing. My
family is expecting a new baby. I've finished a <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://davidswanson.org/warnomore">new book</a>, which
Kathy Kelly has written a beautiful foreword for. I have a
sense that if the universe were right now campaigning on "hope
and change" I might seriously consider voting for it.</p>
<p>I'm also pretty sure that if everything in my personal life
were going slightly to hell and Larry Summers were crowned
king of Wall Street, and the Dallas Cowboys were to win (darn
them!), my sense of this moment in the movement against U.S.
militarism would remain essentially the same. A major victory
has been won, and we need to claim it and celebrate it.</p>
<p>Imagine the euphoria -- or don't imagine it, just remember it
-- when this country elects a new president whose main
redeeming feature is that he isn't the previous president.
For personality fanatics that's big stuff. And there are big
parties. For policy fanatics -- for those of us interested in
seeing policies change rather than personalities -- that kind
of moment is right now. We need some parties, and if
spontaneity is beyond us, perhaps we can use the International
Day of Peace on September 21st for a combination celebration /
discussion during which we explain to ourselves that it really
is OK to celebrate.</p>
<p>Yes, many people in this country and around the world are
suffering horrible tragedies in their personal lives and as a
result of public events. Yes, the horrors in Syria, as in
many other places, continue. Yes, the CIA is arming
terrorists in Syria. Yes, the president whose missile strikes
we prevented is taking credit for that restraint, just as he
would have taken credit for the carnage had we not stopped him
-- and he's threatening to bring the missile strikes back.
Yes, if we let down our guard for a moment, the president and
Congress and the CIA will do their worst. Yes, the danger for
Iraq and Libya really loomed large after they had given up
nuclear and chemical weapons, not before. Yes, lots of people
opposed bombing Syria because they didn't think Syrians
deserved such favors. (No, I'm not making that up.) Yes, the
corporate media is pretending that the threat of war brought
peace, ignoring the successful insistence on peace by the
people of the world.</p>
<p>But that's why we have to celebrate what really happened. We
have to announce it. The point is not to take credit. No one
person or group did this. People espousing a variety of
ideologies did it. And they did it over many years. Millions
contributed. The point is that war was popularly rejected.</p>
<p>Why does this matter? It's not a case for optimism, or for
pessimism. I continue to have very little use for either bit
of self-indulgence. The forces that press for more wars have
not gone away. Neither have they been empowered. The point
is that those who nonsensically proclaim that stopping wars is
impossible cannot get away with saying that anymore. </p>
<p>You know the types. They show up at meetings, wait for the
question-and-answer period, and then give a speech on how
everything is utterly hopeless. Those speeches should be
laughed away within the first five seconds now. And the many,
many people who had begun ever so slightly to take that
defeatist nonsense seriously can now be relieved of that
weight. The danger now is not of being a sucker who
proclaimed good news just before a genocide. The danger is of
joining in the foolish campaign of the war propagandists by
pushing the lie of powerlessness on people just after they
prevented a war.</p>
<p>Do we still have to prevent a war again this week? <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://warisacrime.org">Of
course, we do</a>. Do we have to take on the larger task of
organizing peace and preventing crises? <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://davidswanson.org/outlawry">We do</a>. Do we
need to build a movement for the abolition of war that reaches
beyond opposition to each immediate war proposal? <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://davidswanson.org/warnomore">You'd better
believe it</a>. But this is what we wanted in 2001 and
2003. Well, some of us did -- that's the point. We're larger
now, even if it's not made visible. As long as we went on
failing to prevent wars, people could say we'd never prevent
them. There's no science or logic behind such an assertion,
but it still has power in it. Or it did, until now. Now we
can claim with equal validity that we'll stop every single war
proposed from here on out. Of course we might or we might
not, but we know that it's up to us, that it depends on what
we do, that little steps that appear useless at the time can
help, and that changes to our culture can outweigh changes to
the Pentagon budget, the global climate, crises in capitalism,
or any other supposedly unstoppable force.</p>
<p>After World War I, people in the United States understood the
need to eliminate war. Again, after Vietnam, many understood
it almost that much. They developed the Vietnam Syndrome, a
level of healthy resistance to more wars lamented as a disease
by Washington. Now we're moving back in that direction. War
resistance is the health of the people. We're not developing
a syndrome. We're developing an immunity. We've been
vaccinated against war. We're not as allergic to <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://warisalie.org">the
propaganda</a> as we once were. We're war resistant, and
our task is to compel those in power not to lament our
syndrome this time, but to share in our contagious good
health.</p>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
<p>David Swanson's books include "<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://warisalie.org/" target="_blank">War Is A Lie</a>."
He blogs at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://davidswanson.org/"
title="http://davidswanson.org" target="_blank">http://davidswanson.org</a>
and <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://warisacrime.org/"
title="http://warisacrime.org" target="_blank">http://warisacrime.org</a>
and works for <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://rootsaction.org/"
title="http://rootsaction.org" target="_blank">http://rootsaction.org</a>.
He hosts <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://davidswanson.org/taxonomy/term/41"
target="_blank">Talk Nation Radio</a>. Follow him on
Twitter: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://twitter.com/davidcnswanson" target="_blank">@davidcnswanson</a>
and <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319#"
target="_blank">FaceBook</a>. <br>
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