[Peace] Fwd: David Swanson: "Now We Can Finally Get to Work"

[stuartnlevy]

-------- Original message --------From: David Swanson <davidcnswanson at gmail.com> Date: 11/9/16  03:22  (GMT-06:00) To: David Swanson <david at davidswanson.org> Subject: [ufpj-activist] Now We Can Finally Get to Work 
Now We Can Finally Get to Work
            
	    	      By David Swanson
http://davidswanson.org/node/5341
	 
      
        Dear Democrats,
Are you finding yourselves suddenly a bit doubtful of the wisdom of 
drone wars? Presidential wars without Congress? Massive investment in 
new, smaller, "more usable" nuclear weapons? The expansion of bases 
across Africa and Asia? Are you disturbed by the wars in Afghanistan, 
Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen? Can total surveillance and the 
persecution of whistleblowers hit a point where they've gone too far? Is
 the new Cold War with Russia looking less than ideal now? How about the
 militarization of U.S. police: is it time to consider alternatives to 
that?
I hear you. I'm with you. Let's build a movement together to end the 
madness of constantly overthrowing governments with bombs. Let's propose
 nonviolent alternatives to a culture gone mad with war. Let's end the mindset that creates war in the first place.
We have opportunities as well as dangers. A President Trump is 
unpredictable. He wants to proliferate nuclear weapons, bomb people, 
kill people, stir up hatred of people, and increase yet further military
 spending. But he also said the new Cold War was a bad idea. He said he 
wanted to end NATO, not to mention NAFTA, as well as breaking the habit 
of overthrowing countries left and right. Trump seems to immediately 
back off such positions under the slightest pressure. Will he adhere to 
them under massive pressure from across the political spectrum? It's worth a try.
We have an opportunity to build a movement that includes a focus on 
and participation from refugees/immigrants. We have a chance to create 
opposition to racist wars and racism at home. We may just discover that 
what's left of the U.S. labor movement is suddenly more open to opposing
 wars. Environmental groups may find a willingness to oppose the world's
 top destroyer of the environment: the U.S. military. Civil liberties 
groups may at long last be willing to take on the militarism that 
creates the atrocities they oppose. We have to work for such a broader 
movement. We have to build on the trend of protesting the national 
anthem and make it a trend of actively resisting the greatest purveyor 
of violence on earth.
I know you're feeling a little beat down at the moment. You 
shouldn't. You had a winning candidate in Bernie Sanders. Your party 
cheated him out of the nomination. All that stuff you tell yourselves 
about encouraging demographic trends and the better positions of young 
people is all true. You just looked for love in all the wrong places. 
Running an unpopular candidate in a broken election system is not the 
way to change the world. Even a working election system would not be the
 central means by which to improve anything. There's no getting back the
 mountains of money and energy invested in this election. But activism 
is an unlimited resource. Directing your energies now in more strategic 
directions can inspire others who in turn can re-inspire you.
 
Dear Republicans,
Your outsider is threatening insiderness. He's got the same tribe of 
DC corporate lobbyists planning his nominations that Hillary Clinton had
 lined up for hers. Can we resist that trend? Can we insist that the 
wars be ended? Can those moments of off-the-cuff honesty about dinosaurs
 like NATO be turned into actual action? Donald Trump took a lot of heat
 for proposing to be fair to Palestinians as well as Israelis, and he 
backed off fast. Can we encourage him to stand behind that initial 
inclination?
Can we stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership and end NAFTA as well? We 
heard a million speeches about how bad NAFTA is. How about actually 
ending it? Can we stop the looming war supplemental spending bill? Can 
we put a swift halt to efforts in Congress to repeal the right to sue 
Saudi Arabia and other nations for their wars and lesser acts of 
terrorism?
How about all that well deserved disgust with the corporate media? 
Can we actually break up that cartel and allow opportunities for media 
entrepreneurs?
 
Dear United States,
Donald Trump admitted we had a broken election system and for a while
 pretended that he would operate outside of it by funding his own 
campaign. It's time to actually fix it. It's time to end the system of 
legalized bribery, fund elections, make registration automatic, make 
election day a holiday, end gerrymandering, eliminate the electoral 
college, create the right to vote, create the public hand-counting of 
paper ballots at every polling place, and create ranked choice voting as
 Maine just did.
Voter suppression efforts in this year's elections should be 
prosecuted in each state. And any indications of fraud in vote counting 
by machines should be investigated. We should take the opportunity 
created by all the McCarthyist nonsense allegations of Russian 
interference to get rid of unverifiable voting.
There are also areas in which localities and states, as well as 
international organizations and alliances, must now step up to take the 
lead. First and foremost is investing in a serious effort to avoid 
climate catastrophe. Second is addressing inequality that has surpassed 
the Middle Ages: both taxing the overclass and upholding the underclass 
must be pursued creatively. Mass incarceration and militarized police 
are problems that states can solve.
But we can advance a positive agenda across the board by 
understanding this election in the way that much of the world will 
understand it: as a vote against endless war. Let's end the wars, end 
the weapons dealing, close the bases, and cut the $1 trillion a year 
going into the military. Hell, why not demand that a businessman 
president for the first time ever audit the Pentagon and find out what 
it's spending money on?
 
Dear World,
We apologize for having elected President Trump as well as for nearly
 electing President Clinton. Many of you believe we defeated the 
representative of the enlightenment in favor of the sexist racist 
buffoon. This may be a good thing. Or at least it may be preferable to 
your eight-year-long delusion that President Obama was a man of peace 
and justice.
I hate to break it to you, but the United States government has been 
intent on dominating the rest of you since the day it was formed. If 
electing an obnoxious president helps you understand that, so much the 
better. Stop joining in U.S. "humanitarian wars" please. They never were
 humanitarian, and if you can recognize that now, so much the better. 
The new guy openly wants to "steal their oil." So did the last several 
presidents, although none of them said so. Are we awake now?
Shut down the U.S. bases in your country. They represent your subservience to Donald Trump. Close them.
Want to save the earth's climate? Build a nonviolent movement that resists destructive agendas coming out of the United States.
Want to uphold the rule of law, diplomacy, aid, decency, and 
humanitarianism? Stop making exceptions for U.S. crimes. Tell the 
International Criminal Court to indict a non-African. Prosecute the 
crime and crimes of war in your own courts. Stop cooperating in the 
surrounding and threatening of Russia, China, and Iran. Clinton wanted 
to send weapons to Ukraine and bomb Syria. Make sure Trump doesn't. Make
 peace in Ukraine and Syria before January.
It's time that we all began treating the institution of war as the 
unacceptable vestige of barbarism that it can appear when given an 
openly racist, sexist, bigoted face. We have the ability to use 
nonviolent tools to direct the world where we want it to go. We have to 
stop believing the two big lies: that we are generally powerless, and 
that our only power lies in elections. Let's finally get active. Let's start by ending war making.

      

-- 



David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook. 


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