[Peace-discuss] Eloquence and truth

[Morton K.Brussel]

  Critical Reflections on American Complicity:  "The world is waiting 
for an answer: Are we Americans, or human beings?”

  Robert Jensen

  [Speech at the Austin, TX, antiwar rally marking the second 
anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, March 19, 2005.]

  First, a disclaimer: Given all the fussing about dangerous radical 
professors these days, I should make it clear that while I teach at the 
University of Texas at Austin, I don’t speak for the university. (Not 
that anyone at this rally would ever imagine that I do.) I repeat: What 
I’m about to say is not official policy of the University of Texas. In 
case anyone was confused, the University of Texas is not a radical 
institution and is not committed to anti-empire politics.

  It’s more important to make it clear that I don’t claim to speak FOR 
anyone. Instead, I try to speak with people, to speak as part of a 
movement for justice and peace. And in nearly 800 cities and towns 
across the United States today -- and all around the world -- people 
are in the streets together saying no to war, no to U.S. aggression, no 
to empire.

  When I looked at the list of cities where there will be events today, 
I was most excited to see my hometown of Fargo, North Dakota. If people 
are in the streets in Fargo, the revolution must be just around the 
corner. You betcha. If people are protesting in Fargo, it means 
something’s happening here, in the United States, in the empire.

  What’s happening is hopeful. It means that even when people are 
deluged daily by the most relentless and sophisticated propaganda 
system in the world, they can see clearly the issues, see clearly 
what’s at stake, and take action.

  But we can’t be naïve about the struggle. We have to face the serious 
obstacles to real justice and peace in the world, which can’t be 
overcome by one day’s protest. Let’s be clear about those obstacles.

  The first, and most obvious, problem is: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, 
Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Republican Party. We have to 
commit ourselves not just to getting these the ideologically fanatical 
reactionaries out of office but also to challenging them for control of 
the public conversation -- the heart of democracy -- which they have so 
effectively narrowed and degraded.

  The second, and equally obvious, problem is: John Kerry, John Edwards, 
Hillary Rodham Clinton and the other corporate toadies who run the 
Democratic Party. I know there are some in the antiwar movement who 
believe the Democratic Party can be a vehicle to challenge the U.S. 
empire. But that wasn’t true in the last half of the 20th century, when 
Cold-War liberals promoted imperial policies, and it isn’t true in the 
21st century, when War-on-Terrorism liberals are doing their part to 
prop up the empire.

  Those are the easy targets, the people in power. But we face other 
challenges that run deeper.

  We have to confront the deeply embedded racism in the United States 
that makes it so easy to mobilize public support for war, as long as 
the targets are not white.

  We have to confront the barbarism of the United States, which not only 
has the capacity to destroy an entire society but a proven willingness 
to do just that to achieve policy goals.

  But perhaps most importantly, we have to confront the incredible 
affluence and the sense of entitlement that is so common in this 
country. That is not a problem exclusive to reactionary Republicans or 
cowardly Democrats. It’s a problem in every corner of this country, 
including in progressive politics. The United States has 5 percent of 
the world’s population yet we consume about 25 percent of the world’s 
oil and 30 percent of the gross world product. We all enjoy, to varying 
degrees, the cheap toys of empire. The people at the top benefit most, 
but we are all living in relative luxury compared with most of the rest 
of the world. Half the world’s population -- more than 3 billion of our 
brothers and sisters -- live on less than $2 a day. Half the world’s 
people live on what you and I might pay for a cup of fancy coffee. We 
need to keep central in our minds and in our hearts the fact of our 
affluence and their poverty, and understand the connection.

  That affluence matters politically, because it is easy for people who 
live comfortably to be morally lazy and politically passive. U.S. 
military and economic power around the world helps create and 
perpetuate these conditions of inequality. To challenge that power is 
to challenge our own affluence. It’s easy even for those who engage in 
dissident politics to forget that changing the politics of this country 
also means changing our own lives. The two projects must go forward 
together.

  Let me put it as clearly as I can: The way we live in this country -- 
the way every one of us here at this rally today lives -- is morally 
indefensible and ecologically unsustainable. It is a way of life that 
can’t be enjoyed by the rest of the world, and it is a way of life that 
if unchecked literally will destroy the world.

  So, our immediate message is clear: U.S. out of Iraq now. The U.S. 
occupation of Iraq cannot bring security and democracy in Iraq. It is 
an impediment to security and democracy.

  Our choices over the long term are just as clear. On all these fronts, 
political and personal, we have to ask: What are we willing to give up? 
What risks are we willing to take?

  We have a choice: We can actually live the values that we say guide 
our country or we can abandon those values. We can work to make 
democracy -- that is, a system in which ordinary people have meaningful 
input into the formation of public policy -- a reality in our own 
country. If we don’t, the unrestrained and violent use of U.S. power 
abroad will remain a danger.

  We have a choice: We can live on top of the world or we can live in 
the world. The stakes are high; if we don’t find a way to force the 
United States to live in the world, before too long there may well be 
no world left for anyone.

  These challenges can be condensed into a simple choice: We can be 
Americans, or we can be human beings.

  The rest of the world is waiting for our answer.
  Robert Jensen -- a journalism professor at the University of Texas at 
Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center 
(http://thirdcoastactivist.org/) -- is the author of “Citizens of the 
Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity” and “Writing Dissent: 
Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream.” He can be 
reached at rjensen at uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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