|
April 1, 2002
Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's
Top 10 CDs
Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law
March 31, 2002
Jordan
Flaherty
Last
Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me
Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
March 23, 2002
Mokhiber/Weissman
A
Corporate Lawyer
Speaks Out
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 1, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
April 1, 2002
A Call to Action
Peace and Nuclear Disarmament
By Rep Dennis Kucinich
". . . Come my friends, 'tis not
too late to seek a newer world;"
-- Alfred Lord Tennyson
If you believe that humanity has a higher destiny,
if you believe we can evolve, and become better than we are;
if you believe we can overcome the scourge of war and someday
fulfill the dream of harmony and peace earth, let us begin
the conversation today. Let us exchange our ideas. Let us plan
together, act together and create peace together. This is a
call for common sense, for peaceful, non-violent citizen action
to protect our precious world from widening war and from stumbling
into a nuclear catastrophe.
The climate for conflict has intensified,
with the struggle between Pakistan and India, the China-Taiwan
tug of war, and the increased bloodshed between Israel and the
Palestinians. United States' troop deployments in the Philippines,
Yemen, Georgia, Columbia and Indonesia create new possibilities
for expanded war. An invasion of Iraq is planned. The recent
disclosure that Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea,
and Libya are considered by the United States as possible targets
for nuclear attack catalyzes potential conflicts everywhere.
These crucial political decisions promoting
increased military actions, plus a new nuclear first-use policy,
are occurring without the consent of the American people, without
public debate, without public hearings, without public votes.
The President is taking Congress's approval of responding to
the Sept. 11 terrorists as a license to flirt with nuclear war.
"Politics ought to stay out of fighting
a war," the President has been quoted as saying on March
13th 2002. Yet Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution
explicitly requires that Congress take responsibility when
it comes to declaring war. This President is very popular, according
to the polls. But polls are not a substitute for democratic
process. Attributing a negative connotation here to politics
or dismissing constitutionally mandated congressional oversight
belies reality. Spending $400 billion a year for defense is
a political decision. Committing troops abroad is a political
decision. War is a political decision. When men and women die
on the battlefield that is the result of a political decision.
The use of nuclear weapons, which can end the lives of millions,
is a profound political decision. In a monarchy there need
be no political decisions. In a democracy, all decisions are
political, in that the derive from the consent of the governed.
In a democracy, budgetary, military and
national objectives must be subordinate to the political process.
Before we celebrate an imperial presidency, let it be said that
the lack of free and open political process, the lack of free
and open political debate, and the lack of free and open political
dissent can be fatal in a democracy.
We have reached a moment in our country's
history where it is urgent that people everywhere speak out
as president of his or her own life, to protect the peace of
the nation and world within and without. We should speak out
and caution leaders who generate fear through talk of the endless
war or the final conflict. We should appeal to our leaders to
consider that their own bellicose thoughts, words and deeds
are reshaping consciousness and can have an adverse effect
on our nation. Because when one person thinks fight! he or she
finds a fight. One faction thinks war! and starts a war. One
nation thinks nuclear! and approaches the abyss. And what of
one nation which thinks peace, and seeks peace?
Neither individuals nor nations exist
in a vacuum, which is why we have a serious responsibility for
each other in this world. It is also urgent that we find those
places of war in our own lives, and begin healing the world
through healing ourselves. Each of us is a citizen of a common
planet, bound to a common destiny. So connected are we, that
each of us has the power to be the eyes of the world, the voice
of the world, the conscience of the world, or the end of the
world. And as each one of us chooses, so becomes the world.
Each of us is architect of this world.
Our thoughts, the concepts. Our words, the designs. Our deeds,
the bricks and mortar of our daily lives. Which is why we should
always take care to regard the power of our thoughts and words,
and the commands they send into action through time and space.
Some of our leaders have been thinking
and talking about nuclear war. In the past week there has been
much news about a planning document which describes how and
when America might wage nuclear war. The Nuclear Posture Review
recently released to the media by the government:
1. Assumes that the United States has
the right to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
2. Equates nuclear weapons with conventional
weapons.
3. Attempts to minimize the consequences
of the use of nuclear weapons.
4. Promotes nuclear response to a chemical
or biological attack.
Some dismiss this review as routine government
planning. But it becomes ominous when taken in the context of
a war on terrorism which keeps expanding its boundaries, rhetorically
and literally. The President equates the "war on terrorism"
with World War II. He expresses a desire to have the nuclear
option "on the table." He unilaterally withdraws from
the ABM treaty. He seeks $8.9 billion to fund deployment of
a missile shield. He institutes, without congressional knowledge,
a shadow government in a bunker outside our nation's Capitol.
He tries to pass off as arms reduction, the storage of, instead
of the elimination of, nuclear weapons.
Two generations ago we lived with nuclear
nightmares. We feared and hated the Russians who feared and
hated us. We feared and hated the "godless, atheistic"
communists. In our schools, we dutifully put our head between
our legs and practiced duck-and-cover drills. In our nightmares,
we saw the long, slow arc of a Soviet missile flash into our
very neighborhood. We got down on our knees and prayed for peace.
We surveyed, wide eyed, pictures of the destruction of Nagasaki
and Hiroshima. We supported the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
We knew that if you "nuked" others you "nuked"
yourself.
The splitting of the atom for destructive
purposes admits a split consciousness, the compartmentalized
thinking of Us vs. Them, the dichotomized thinking, which spawns
polarity and leads to war. The proposed use of nuclear weapons,
pollutes the psyche with the arrogance of infinite power. It
creates delusions of domination of matter and space. It is
dehumanizing through its calculations of mass casualties. We
must overcome doom-thinkers and sayers who invite a world descending,
disintegrating into a nuclear disaster. With a world at risk,
we must find the bombs in our own lives and disarm them. We
must listen to that quiet inner voice which counsels that the
survival of all is achieved through the unity of all.
We must overcome our fear of each other,
by seeking out the humanity within each of us. The human heart
contains every possibility of race, creed, language, religion,
and politics. We are one in our commonalities. Must we always
fear our differences? We can overcome our fears by not feeding
our fears with more war and nuclear confrontations. We must
ask our leaders to unify us in courage.
We need to create a new, clear vision
of a world as one. A new, clear vision of people working out
their differences peacefully. A new, clear vision with the teaching
of nonviolence, nonviolent intervention, and mediation. A new,
clear vision where people can live in harmony within their
families, their communities and within themselves. A new clear
vision of peaceful coexistence in a world of tolerance.
At this moment peril we must move away
from fear's paralysis. This is a call to action to replace expanded
war with expanded peace. This is a call for action to place
the very survival of this planet on the agenda of all people,
everywhere. As citizens of a common planet, we have an obligation
to ourselves and our posterity. We must demand that our nation
and all nations put down the nuclear sword. We must demand that
our nation and all nations
- Abide by the principles of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
- Stop the development of new nuclear
weapons.
- Take all nuclear weapons systems off
alert.
- Persist towards total, worldwide elimination
of all nuclear weapons.
Our nation must
- Revive the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty.
- Sign and enforce the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty.
- Abandon plans to build a so-called
missile shield.
- Prohibit the introduction of weapons
into outer space.
We are in a climate where people expect
debate within our two party system to produce policy alternatives.
However both major political parties have fallen short. People
who ask "Where is the Democratic Party?" and expect
to hear debate may be disappointed. When peace is not on the
agenda of our political parties or our governments then it must
be the work and the duty of each citizen of the world. This
is the time to organize for peace. This is the time for new
thinking. This is the time to conceive of peace as not simply
being the absence of violence, but the active presence of the
capacity for a higher evolution of human awareness. This is
the time to conceive of peace as respect, trust, and integrity.
This is the time to tap the infinite capabilities of humanity
to transform consciousness which compels violence at a personal,
group, national or international levels. This is the time to
develop a new compassion for others and ourselves.
When terrorists threaten our security,
we must enforce the law and bring terrorists to justice within
our system of constitutional justice, without undermining the
very civil liberties which permits our democracy to breathe.
Our own instinct for life, which inspires our breath and informs
our pulse, excites our capacity to reason. Which is why we must
pay attention when we sense a threat to survival.
That is why we must speak out now to
protect this nation, all nations, and the entire planet and
- Challenge those who believe that war
is inevitable.
- Challenge those who believe in a nuclear
right.
- Challenge those who would build new
nuclear weapons. Challenge those who seek nuclear re-armament.
- Challenge those who seek nuclear escalation.
- Challenge those who would make of any
nation a nuclear target. Challenge those who would threaten
to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations.
- Challenge those who would break nuclear
treaties.
- Challenge those who think and think
about nuclear weapons, to think about peace.
It is practical to work for peace. I
speak of peace and diplomacy not just for the sake of peace
itself. But, for practical reasons, we must work for peace as
a means of achieving permanent security. It is similarly practical
to work for total nuclear disarmament, particularly when nuclear
arms do not even come close to addressing the real security
problems which confront our nation, witness the events of September
11, 2001.
We can make war archaic. Skeptics may
dismiss the possibility that a nation which spends $400 billion
a year for military purposes can somehow convert swords into
plowshares. Yet the very founding and the history of this country
demonstrates the creative possibilities of America. We are a
nation which is known for realizing impossible dreams. Ours
is a nation which in its second century abolished slavery, which
many at the time considered impossible. Ours is a nation where
women won the right to vote, which many at the time considered
impossible. Ours is a nation which institutionalized the civil
rights movement, which many at the time considered impossible.
If we have the courage to claim peace, with the passion, the
emotion and the integrity with which we have claimed independence,
freedom and, equality we can become that nation which makes
non-violence an organizing principle in our society, and in
doing so change the world.
That is the purpose of HR 2459. It is
a bill to create a Department of Peace. It envisions new structures
to help create peace in our homes, in our families, in our schools,
in our neighborhoods, in our cities, and in our nation. It
aspires to create conditions for peace within and to create
conditions for peace worldwide. It considers the conditions
which cause people to become the terrorists of the future, issues
of poverty, scarcity and exploitation. It is practical to make
outer space safe from weapons, so that humanity can continue
to pursue a destiny among the stars. HR 3616 seeks to ban weapons
in space, to keep the stars a place of dreams, of new possibilities,
of transcendence.
We can achieve this practical vision
of peace, if we are ready to work for it. People worldwide need
to be meet with like-minded people, about peace and nuclear
disarmament, now. People worldwide need to gather in peace,
now. People worldwide need to march and to pray for peace, now.
People worldwide need to be connecting with each other on the
web, for peace, now. We are in a new era of electronic democracy,
where the world wide web, numerous web sites and bulletin boards
enable new organizations, exercising freedom of speech, freedom
of assembly, freedom of association, to spring into being instantly.
Thespiritoffreedom.com
is such a web site. It is dedicated to becoming an electronic
forum for peace, for sustainability, for renewal and for revitalization.
It is a forum which strives for the restoration of a sense of
community through the empowerment of self, through commitment
of self to the lives of others, to the life of the community,
to the life of the nation, to the life of the world.
Where war making is profoundly uncreative
in its destruction, peacemaking can be deeply creative. We need
to communicate with each other the ways in which we work in
our communities to make this a more peaceful world. I welcome
your ideas at dkucinich@aol.com.
We can share our thoughts and discuss
ways in which we have brought or will bring them into action.
Now is the time to think, to take action
and use our talents and abilities to create peace:
- in our families. in our block clubs.
- in our neighborhoods.
- in our places of worship.
- in our schools and universities.
- in our labor halls.
- in our parent-teacher organizations.
Now is the time to think, speak, write,
organize and take action to create peace as a social imperative,
as an economic imperative, and as a political imperative. Now
is the time to think, speak, write, organize, march, rally,
hold vigils and take other nonviolent action to create peace
in our cities, in our nation and in the world. And as the hymn
says, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with
me."
This is the work of the human family,
of people all over the world demanding that governments and
non-governmental actors alike put down their nuclear weapons.
This is the work of the human family, responding in this moment
of crisis to protect our nation, this planet and all life within
it. We can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace. As we
understand that all people of the world are interconnected,
we can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace. We can accomplish
this through upholding an holistic vision where the claims of
all living beings to the right of survival are recognized. We
can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace through being
a living testament to a Human Rights Covenant where each person
on this planet is entitled to a life where he or she may consciously
evolve in mind, body and spirit.
Nuclear disarmament and peace are the
signposts toward the uplifting path of an even brighter human
condition wherein we can through our conscious efforts evolve
and reestablish the context of our existence from peril to peace,
from revolution to evolution. Think peace. Speak peace. Act
peace. Peace.
|